148 
ON ENTERITIS. 
bably might have been a little softened by aperient medicine. 
Upon the whole, therefore, I am inclined to believe that, as Mr. 
Simonds observed, ‘^constipation is a mere bugbearbut at the 
same time it would be absurd to deny, that cases do sometimes 
occur solely from that cause. I recollect a colt dying the day 
it was foaled, when there was great constipation and inflamma¬ 
tion, and which were apparently, from the symptoms, the cause 
of death. 
Another symptom that Mr. H. mentioned was that of tympa¬ 
nitis; but this, like the other, is often entirely absent in enteritis 
until a short time, in many cases, prior to death. I have seen 
several instances in which, to all appearance, inflammation had 
destroyed the horse from_violent distention of all the bowels: 
in one case this resulted from eating young grass, and another 
from feeding on young clover. The quantity of green food found 
in them was not great, but the distention was excessive. 
It may be said that, in these cases, inflammation was a primary 
affection, caused by the young grass; but, for my own part, 1 be¬ 
lieve that, whatever stimulating quality the food may have had 
on the bowels, the gas so evolved had a great share in producing 
death by distention. 
In one case I introduced the trochar after death, in order to 
try its effect, and through which a great deal of gas escaped; 
and I find in my note-book, at the end of one of the above cases, 
in the year 1829, the following observations :—“ From this case, 
and several others that I have seen, I conceive it would not be 
an improper procedure to puncture the large intestines with a 
trochar, as it frequently occurs that the air cannot be expelled by 
the usual means, and is kept there as a continual irritant to the 
bowels, and impeding respiration by the distention so that it 
will be seen I bad then thoughts on the subject of intestinal 
puncturation, and which Professor Stewart, of Glasgow, has 
brought to the test in the very interesting and successful case 
which he has recorded in The Veterinarian in 1836. 
Sometimes we may have great distention of the small intes¬ 
tines, and yet not visible to the eye externally. I have seen a 
case where the small intestines were distended with water and 
flatus almost to bursting, and in a most violent state of inflam¬ 
mation, caused by drinking cold water, and this producing stran¬ 
gulation just before their termination in the large intestines. 
Mr. H. says, that “ the mode to distinguish between enteiitis 
and other intestinal diseases is simple.” I grant you in many 
instances it is ; but in others there is great difficulty in deciding 
positively where spasm ends and inflammation begins, and parti¬ 
cularly so in cases of strangulation, irritation, constipation, &c. 
