96 RETROSPECTS OF VETERINARY PRACTICE. 
in every form and variety of disease. “ Argus ” complains, 
and not without reason, that it would be absolutely dangerous 
in some stages of this disease to administer aloes; and, ergo, 
turpentine and other stimulants, opium, &c., must, under 
certain modified influences, be equally prejudicial. 
Colic, we know, will attack an animal when the digestive 
organs are not distended with food, but, as is well known, for 
the want of it, more properly. Under these circumstances 
a stimulant, almost of any kind, will answer, whether it bo 
camphor and ginger, gin, warm ale, aqua ammonise, ether, or 
any allied medicament. 
In other cases a certain quantity (not nearly the usual 
meal) of food may be taken, and upon quick exercise colic 
supervene; or the food may be slightly altered in quality, 
the system, probably, also wanting tone at the time, 
and spasm of the bowels follow. Such cases as these have 
frequently come under my notice; and I have invariably 
found that a stimulant, particularly the aromatic spirits of 
ammonia, has effected most marvellous results. 
I recollect being summoned early one morning to go a 
journey of ten miles. The animal I drove was regularly fed 
upon chaff (i. e. cut food), bruised oats and beans, mixed; 
but she had been taken out when onlv half the meal was 
eaten. Symptoms of pain were evident before I completed 
the distance ; and fearful of not meeting with accommoda¬ 
tion in such a wild district as I then was in, I hurried on for 
the last two miles. The animal became very restless before 
being loosed from the gig; but I quickly had her removed 
to the stable, the harness taken off, and the stall w r ell littered 
down. 
The medicine chest in the vehicle supplied me with the 
Spts. Ammon. Aromat., one ounce of which I gave in cold 
water. Mr. Greaves’s words best describe the action of 
ammonia :—“ It is electrical, and the finest antispasmodic 
we possess.” 
Some time before the occurrence just related, now several 
years ago, my confidence in aloes in all cases of colic had 
been shaken. Whether my dissatisfaction was inevitable 
from using the best Barbadoes instead of Cape or Socotrine, 
I do not know; but certainly I had cogent reasons for look¬ 
ing upon colic as possessed of various modifications dependent 
upon different causes. In the first place, I found that in 
ordinary cases of spasm (aloes, in small doses, say five or six 
drachms, given to moderate-sized animals) produced nausea 
and subsequent purgation, owing, no doubt, to constitutional 
peculiarities, by which some could not withstand the effects 
