PARALYSIS OF THE COLON OF A HORSE. 331 
through a defective supply of nervous force, or upon the 
bowel becoming accidentally so much surcharged that the 
muscular coat was unable to propel the contents onwards; 
and the contained mass, being gradually added to, over-dis¬ 
tension followed, which weakened, thinned, and eventually 
paralysed the muscular coat. 
The latter, I am inclined to think, was most likely to have 
been the cause. But should it have been the former, we might 
then expect that the deficiency of nervous force] depended 
upon disease of the inferior vertebral ganglion of the sym¬ 
pathetic nerve, or of some of its offsets, as the mesenteric 
division of the solar plexus. 
In the second place, although the evidence was strongly in 
favour of there being an obstruction in the intestines, and in 
no other part of their course so likely as in the colon, still, 
as before stated, its character could not have been deter¬ 
mined, nor am I aware that its removal could have been 
effected by the aid of medicine or any therapeutic at our 
command. I think I may safely state that, should the 
loss of function of the muscular coat of the colon have 
depended upon organic disease of the nerves which supply it, 
or their ganglia, a restoration to healthy action would have 
been out of the question. On the other hand, should 
accidental engorgement have been the primary cause in 
producing these results, I think that the chances of a cure 
being effected by nature and art combined would have been 
greater; still I must confess they would have been very remote. 
I have been told that such or similar cases are not very 
uncommon in the human subject; and very often, from the 
fecal matter which is passed being in a semiliquid state, they 
are treated as cases of diarrhoea, by giving such medicinal 
agents as are calculated to correct these watery evacuations. 
If this is the case, obstruction from such causes in the large 
bowel is not always correctly diagnosed in human practice. In 
the practice of the veterinary surgeons, an error in forming 
a diagnosis in these cases is not so much to be surprised at, 
as in our patients we are deprived of the verbal information 
the suffering human being is able to communicate to his 
medical attendant. 
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