RUPTURED COLON OF A HORSE. 
401 
He was also clystered^ and had stimulants applied to the 
abdomen. On the next day he appeared perfectly recovered, 
and went to work as usual. I heard no more of him until 
May 5th, at 11 p.m. He had been working in a light cart 
some distance during the da}^, but at a slow pace; he had 
refused his food for the last eight or nine hours, but showed 
no uneasiness until reaching home at 9 o’clock, when 1 found 
him to all appearance in much the same state as on the 
previous occasion. He was continually looking at his 
flanks, but never showed any violent paroxysms. Several 
ineffectual attempts to vomit were made; the pulse was 
44, and very feeble; the breathing natural, and the bowels 
constipated. I gave him Aloes 5v in solution, combined with 
an anodyne, repeating the latter every two hours; injected 
enemas, and applied stimulants to abdomen; but the symp¬ 
toms continued much the same until 5 p.m. on the 6th, 
when the pulse began to increase in number. Death took 
place at 9 p.m. on the 7th; the pain at no time being 
extreme. 
On making a post-mortem examination soon after death, it 
became evident at first sight that a rupture had taken place. 
The cavity of the abdomen, besides containing a quantity of 
fluid, held, perhaps, from twelve to fourteen pounds’ weight 
of escaped ingesta, amongst which I found four live worms 
[Lumbricus Ascaris), averaging from nine to twelve inches 
in length, and an inch in circumference. I was much 
surprised also to see numerous bots so firmly fixed to the 
exterior of the intestines, that it was impossible to remove 
them without breaking their booklets from their body. 
The rupture itself was a little over an inch in length, and 
situated at one of the convolutions of the colon major. The 
parts immediately around the orifice were in a partially 
disorganized state. On cutting into the intestine I found 
no signs of inflammatory action; the muscular coats, how¬ 
ever, were extremely weak. The stomach contained three 
more worms of the same species as those exterior to 
the viscera; ulceration had evidently been going on 
near its pyloric orifice; both the stomach and fundamental 
bot were found in great numbers; the omentum was 
inflamed; all the other viscera were perfectly healthy, but 
showed signs of poverty, the animal being in miserably- 
low condition. 
Taking into consideration the above facts, it is a question 
when the rupture had taken place. Had the worms been 
the cause of it? Both they and the bots attached to the 
intestines had evidently found their way through the 
aperture. 
