SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 831 
paper which I read at the meeting of the Liverpool Association in 1875. 
Since that time I have been enabled to diagnose with almost unerring 
n g 
accuracy three very important forms of twist and displacement. 
These are—1st. Torsion or displacement of the double colon with 
venous (partial vascular) strangulation. 2nd. Torsion of the 
double colon with arterio-venous (complete vascular) strangulation. 
3rd. Displacement of the double colon-sigmoid flexure—in an 
obliquely forward direction from left to right, and across the small 
intestines. 
Before describing these lesions in detail I will briefly refer to the 
causes which are usually in operation to produce them. They are more 
frequently seen in lorry or heavy than in light horses, more probably 
owing to the fact that the bowels of the former are more voluminous 
and more largely filled with food and water. The sigmoid flexure is 
pre-eminently liable to displacement on account of its comparatively 
free position, and from the fact of its usually being the receptacle of a 
large quantity of semi fluid matter. The actual displacement may be, 
and in my opinion is usually, produced by either of the following causes : 
—(1) By rolling about in the agonies of colic, or when turned out to 
grass ; by pitching violently forward on to the nose in attempting to 
lift a load or from losing the feet in slippery weather, or by falling over 
an embankment. (2) By the powerful contraction of the muscular 
walls in spasm of the intestines. (3) By the action of gas (tympany) 
on the interior of the gut when it is comparatively empty; the power of 
imprisoned gas to displace a knucle of intestine is well and often seen in 
making autopsies of horses whose intestines have become inflated with 
gas from decomposition of their contents after death. 
In any of the lesions I have particularised the attendant symptoms 
may not be developed or observed for several hours, and in the third 
form for many hours after the occurrence of the accident which has given 
rise to them; their advent is undoubtedly most rapid in the second 
form. I am satisfied that in many cases a horse receives displacement 
or partial torsion of the colon when at work, and does not evince any 
decided symptoms—not even colic—for hours, in fact not until the con¬ 
gestion of the intestine becomes pronounced, and in the third form not 
until the small intestine and stomach become tympanitic. 
In the first form of colic displacement the symptoms, then, may appear 
suddenly ; in many cases, however, they are preceded by prolonged 
enteralgia, and symptoms of enteritis. In due course the previously full, 
strong, and irritable pulse becomes softer, the injected mucous mem¬ 
branes gradually paler in colour, the body bedewed with moisture, 
the countenance anxious, and the breathing somewhat hurried and 
laboured, the head is turned wistfully to the flank and side, the enteric 
pains are more subdued, but still persist and most markedly of all; if 
attempts are made to distend the jugular vein for the purpose ofbleed- 
ing it will be found impossible to render it tense, difficult to drive the 
flam into it, and when opened only a comparatively small quantity of 
blood can be abstracted, and that is usually of a dark colour. This 
condition of the jugular becomes more pronounced as dissolution ap¬ 
proaches. The temperature does not, as a rule, exceed 104° F., and on 
rectal exploration the resilient tumour, which I have before described as 
characteristic of intestinal torsion or displacement, may be felt, as may 
also the tense and twisted longitudinal bands of the gut. The posterior 
bowels are usually emptied rapidly, the fseces being pultaceous and 
passed in small quantities. After death there is usually sero-sanguin- 
eous effusion into the peritoneal cavity. 
