130 
ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS 
bloody serum, causing considerable tumefaction of the walls 
of the intestine and the mesentery, and larger or smaller spots 
of haemorrhage, and sometimes an outpouring of blood in 
the intestinal tube. As a sequel of this passive congestion 
of the intestines paralysis takes place in them, the pro¬ 
gress of their contents is stopped, and tympanitis soon 
becomes a complication. Let us prove that these are the 
symptoms and lesions we find also in intestinal indigestion, 
in red colic, and in this disease, which for a long time we 
have wrongly attributed to active congestion or to enteritis. 
Let us remark that the arteries of the colon and cascum, 
which are the most exposed to embolisms from the ordinary 
anatomical disposition of the aneurism and thrombus, are 
also the portions of intestine most exposed to colics by con¬ 
gestion. 
When but small portions of the thrombus are detached, 
which is oftenest the case, we find it plugging but a small 
vessel, and then only a small portion of the intestine is para¬ 
lysed, and the colic but slight and transient. Soon the blood 
finds a collateral way, and the viscus resumes its normal 
functions. Sometimes several branches of the artery are 
obstructed at the same time, and then the anatomical altera¬ 
tions are more serious, and a longer time is necessary to 
establish a collateral circulation. At other times the oblitera¬ 
tion is incomplete, and the functional derangement will be 
less serious. If fragments of the thrombus are detached from 
time to time, we have remittent colic, more or less chronic. 
The gravity of the functional derangement and of the colic 
will depend on the difficulty of establishing a collateral circu¬ 
lation. This gravity, this re-establishing of the circulation, 
does not depend, however, on the dimension of the vessels; 
often it is feebler in the large ramifications of the artery than 
in the small, and this explains how a colic which appears 
very serious may speedily abate, and how another which 
appeared mild may take some time to cure, and produce the 
usual complications. 
Let us remark, in order to explain the general gravity of 
colic due to intestinal congestion, that the mesenteric arteries 
help but very little the collateral circulation, which is, how¬ 
ever, their sole means of cure.' Whilst other organs receive 
arterial branches from several sides, and oftenest from every 
side, the branches of the mesenteric anastomose with neigh¬ 
bouring arteries only on two sides, anteriorly and posteriorly, 
and always with branches of the same trunk. 
Often the collateral circulation which is established is 
insufficient; then intermittent colic takes place, which is 
