NORTH OF ENGLAND VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 943 
These are not cases that the practical farrier, cow leech, or stud 
groom can grapple with; they work in the dark, and are soon at a 
standstill. No, gentlemen, it is only the man who has begun at the 
foundation of our profession, namely, anatomy and physiology, and 
has worked steadily onwards, dissecting and making post-mortem 
examinations on every opportunity, until he feels, when standing by 
his patient, that he can mentally see, trace, and read off all that is 
going on within him ; the small stomach, the great length of the 
small intestines, and the extraordinary capaciousness of the large 
ones, with their relative position and functions, must all be known 
and remembered. There must be no hesitation ; what we do must 
be done promptly and efficiently, and having done all that we con¬ 
sider necessary in the case, no amount of pressure from either the 
owner of our patient or the bystanders, of which there are always 
plenty about, and ready to give advice, should make us give unne¬ 
cessary drugs. These are cases in which the doctrine of non-inter¬ 
vention must be carried out; the Veterinary Surgeon must either 
have entire command of the case, or he will be wise to withdraw 
from it; for our patients are quite as likely to die from over-treat¬ 
ment as from the disease itself. 
I will now endeavour briefly, but I am afraid only feebly, to lay 
my views respecting the disease before you. I have seen the disease 
in all classes of horses, but, as a rule, cart horses are most subject 
to it. This may be easily accounted for from the fact that they are 
not so carefully fed and taken care of as their better bred brethren ; 
they have less time to feed in, coarser food, are often called upon to 
lift heavy weights, are more exposed to bad weather, often have to 
stand in water up to the knees and hocks, or even the belly; all 
these things tend to produce derangement of the digestive organs, 
and thereby, directly or indirectly, produce the disease in question. 
By directly I mean an impacted state of the bowels without acute 
inflammatory action, twist, or displacement of the bowels ; by indi¬ 
rectly I mean obstruction, the result of inflammation, twist, dis¬ 
placement, rupture, or intussusception following spasmodic or flatu¬ 
lent colic. 
The simplest form of obstructed bowel that we meet with is that 
of impaction of the colon from eating bean or pea straw instead of 
hay. This is a very common form of the disease, and often met 
with in the farmer’s horse. In these cases the animal does not 
suffer acutely, the pulse is little affected except when the colic pains 
are present, the mucous membranes are little or none affected, and, 
as a rule, the mouth is clean; the abdomen is swollen, particularly 
the off side ; it is rather hard to the feel, not resonant, and the space 
between the last rib and spine of the ilium is not so tense and drum¬ 
like as in those cases I shall afterwards direct your attention to. 
There is general uneasiness, but no acute pain, the animal often 
lying quiet for some time. Some have a morbid appetite, eating 
dirty litter, &c., in which cases the mouth is foul and pasty; the 
action of the bowels is not entirely suspended, an occasional very 
small dry piece of faeces will be voided. On passing the hand into 
