THE THERAPEUTICS OF COLIC. 
465 
In other cases aloes remains in the system for a long - time 
causing great depression, and in some cases fatal aloe poison¬ 
ing, without showing any tendency to purgation. The bland 
oils, while doing little, if any, good in these cases, do compar¬ 
atively little harm, but the already overloaded stomach can 
certainly profit but little by their introduction. 
I have noted, also, that when oil has been given, and yet 
remains in the stomach, that in case of pills wrapped in paper 
entering it the wrappers become oiled and the pill is not dis¬ 
solved for several hours. 
In this way 1 have seen chloral pills repeated several times 
without effect until finally the oil has been absorbed and then 
the combined effects of several large doses of chloral were 
manifested all at once. 
Other purgatives such as glauber salts, tartar emetic and 
calomel have been commended and are probably safer than 
aloes or oil, although their value may well be doubted. 
More recently, pilocarpine and eserine have come into 
prominence as remedial agents in this affection and like most 
new remedies, have been much abused and have then tended 
to relapse into disuse. 
If eserine has a place in veterinary medicine it is certainly 
in this disease. The food is generally soft, and needs only 
prompt peristaltic action to cause its expulsion from the ali¬ 
mentary canal, and this eserine can furnish. Friedberger 
and Frohner fear that in the over filled condition of the 
stomach and bowels the severe muscular contractions are 
likely to produce rupture. This would doubtless be true in 
case of mechanical obstruction, such as volvulus; of inflama- 
tion with consequent paralysis of a section of intestine ; of 
impaction with hard dry food, or in the presence of great 
accumulations of gas. The mechanical obstructions we 
rarely suspect in cases where a clear history of overfeeding 
exists, the impaction with hard dry feces, rarely, if ever, 
occurs in these cases, the inflamation and paralysis of sections 
of the bowel usually takes place only after several hours 
duration of the disease, while the gaseous distension is sub¬ 
ject to our control by surgical means. We therefore see no 
