THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXV, 
No. 292. 
APRIL 1852. 
Third Series, 
No. 52. 
CALCULUS IN THE INTESTINE, 
OBSTRUCTING ALL PASSAGE, AND PRODUCING SEVERE PAROXYSMS OF 
PAIN, UNDER WHICH, THOUGH SOLID FOOD OF EVERY KIND WAS 
REFUSED, LIFE WAS BY WATER ALONE SUSTAINED FOR THIRTEEN 
DAYS. 
By W. Percivall, M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
THE subject of the extraordinary case I am going to relate 
was a grey troop horse, ten years of age, in excellent health and 
condition at the time he was taken ill; who in his younger days 
had shewn some viciousness of disposition, and was indeed, 
after being broke in the riding-school, considered any thing but 
steady or obedient in the ranks. 
On the morning of the 16th December 1851, he was admitted 
into an infirmary box for being “ off his feed ” and having a 
“ scouring”on him. Some hydrarg. cum creta et ipecacuanha, in 
little cordial mass, was given by way of correcting this bowel 
disorder, which by the next morning, without any repetition of 
the diarrhoea, had subsided. 
This morning (the 17th), however, although the horse had 
ceased scouring, he had become evidently uneasy from ab¬ 
dominal pain, a malady he had not before given any signs of. 
The pain rapidly grew sharper and sharper, until he was found 
labouring under a regular paroxysm of “ gripes.” The usual 
antispasmodic draught was now administered; and, as he had 
passed nothing per anum since scouring yesterday, he had a 
common enema given him with Reid’s patent syringe; the most 
effectual—or rather only really effectual—instrument, in my 
opinion, for serving an enema. This not succeeding, either in 
tranquillizing him or soliciting any evacuation, he was back- 
raked. All, however, to no purpose. 
Conceiving it possible—though such a failure hardly ever 
happens—that the Barbadoes aloes contained in solution in the 
antispasmodic draught, which had several times been repeated, 
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