THE THERAPEUTICS OF 'COLIC. 
463 
lations. Should emptying- of the colon fail to relieve the 
gastric distension, the stomach tube may be found useful. 
When the tympany has been relieved by the aid of the 
trocar the chief element of urgency has been overcome, and 
the pain and discomfort of the animal has been markedly al¬ 
leviated, so the attendant has time to proceed deliberately 
and carefully. The patient should be made as comfortable 
as possible, a good, deep bed of straw provided, upon which, 
if it will lie down, it should be allowed to rest quietly. If 
very restless and not exhausted, slow walking sometimes al¬ 
lays the uneasiness and tends to hasten the evacuation of the 
bowels. The patient should be prevented from throwing it¬ 
self violently on the ground. Hot fomentations, poultices, 
brisk rubbing, or the application of stimulating liniments to 
the abdominal walls may be of value. If the pain present 
demands it, the remedies to be administered should be so se¬ 
lected that while alleviating the pain thev should not interfere 
with the normal secretion or peristaltic motion of the alimen¬ 
tary canal and that they should, as far as possible, check fur¬ 
ther decomposition of food and the consequent gaseous ac¬ 
cumulations. Opium and morphine are both clearly contra¬ 
indicated, as they serve to constipate and paralyze the bowels 
and augment the gaseous distension. 
Turpentine, camphor, etc., relieve the pain fairly well, but 
are too prone to irritate. Carminatives, such as ginger, anise, 
peppermint, etc., exert a wholesome influence by stimulating 
the normal action of the bowels, especially when combined 
with alcohol or its derivatives, such as nitrous ether, these 
latter possessing in addition to their anti-spasmodic properties 
a distinctly antiferment action. Chloral hydrate claims here 
a very important place, being markedly antiseptic, yet ano¬ 
dyne in a high degree. Chloral has the disadvantage that after 
a full dose, especially in solution, it is dangerous to follow 
soon after with a drench, as the chloral so benumbs and anaes¬ 
thetizes the throat and larnyx that thereafter swallowing is 
imperfect and the medicine drops into the larnyx and passes 
into the lungs, producing foreign-body pneumonia, more fre¬ 
quently, in my observation, acute lung apoplexy ending fatally 
