147 
ON ENTERITIS. 
By Air. W. A. Cartwright, Whilchurch. 
It has been my intention for some time past to make a few 
remarks on enteritis, and bowel complaints generally. The dis¬ 
cussion at the Veterinary Medical Association has been a further 
incentive, and I have therefore sent you the following obser¬ 
vations :— 
I consider that there are no complaints to which the horse is 
more liable than those affecting the bowels: their causes so va¬ 
rious ; the difficulty in positively deciding on their nature, re¬ 
quiring the greatest tact, talent, and discrimination; and yet the 
great carelessness and indifference there is in farmers and the 
public in tampering with such diseases, and losing for the vete¬ 
rinarian the first and most important step in their cure, viz. time 
at the outset for attacking the disease. Oh ! how often is it 
the case, that we are indignant to see valuable horses sacrificed 
by their owner and ignorant villains quacking them ; giving them 
sometimes the most trifling things imaginable, at other times, 
the most disgusting and destructive. I have had a great deal of 
experience in such cases; and I speak with the firmest conviction 
when I assert, that farmers and others never err more than they do 
here in taking such cases into their own hands, or allowing them to 
be treated by some of the most ignorant of the community. That 
some are soon cured, and apparently by trifling means, we all 
can admit; but that a great many others require the greatest 
care, skill, and attention to get them well no one can deny. The 
mischief I consider is here—every one has a receipt,’'and most 
persons reason, when a horse lies down, oh ! ’tis the belly¬ 
ache, I will soon cure himbeing wofully ignorant at the same 
tinie of the cause of that pain ; little dreading or knowing that 
there may even be violent inflammation from some of the many 
causes well known to veterinary surgeons, and for which their re¬ 
medies must be rank poison. 
Mr. Hutchinson says, in his essay, that in cases of enteritis 
there is invariably obstinate constipation of the bowels.” Now, 
as far as my experience goes, I cannot at all agree with him; for 
I find ^that out of about thirty cases that I have notes of (and I 
have treated a great many more) there are not above three or 
four patients that were at all constipated, and those but in a 
small degree, and the constipation, I fancy, but little concerned 
in producing the disease. In some of the cases, I acknowledge, 
the large intestines have been tolerably full of food ; but which, 
on opening them, was found to be of a pulpy consistence, and pro- 
