CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
203 
all cases of colic there was a tendency to constipation, but he thought the 
exciting cause of cold water alone would not produce colic, it only 
‘affected a horse having an empty stomach for a long time ; the multipli¬ 
cation of drinking fountains was strong proof that water alone did not pro¬ 
duce colic ; water was an exciting cause but not the cause of indigestion. 
He wondered no one had as yet given a name for this disease in the 
horse ; there was a disease very analogous to it in the human subject; he 
referred to sycosis, which would be a very good term for the disease in 
the horse. 
Mr. Gerrard said his ideas regarding colic were very much in unison 
with those expressed by Mr. blunting, although he had anticipated a 
rather different system of treatment from him, as one who had sat so 
long at the feet of Gamaliel or one of the great masters on this subject. 
He had fully expected a philosophic disquisition on the action of aloes 
in the treatment of colic, for there was no subject that Mr. Gamgee wrote 
so dogmatically upon as the action of aloes in the treatment of colic, to¬ 
gether with the use of his enema funnel, which he regarded as capable of 
curing any case of colic; indeed he mentions that he had not lost a case 
for some thirty years. And those who pursue the stimulant or sedative 
mode of treatment, he rather twits with treating the symptoms of the dis¬ 
ease instead of the disease itself. Colic being essentially a spasmodic con¬ 
traction of the muscular coats of the intestines, induced by some irritant, 
either in the shape of food or water, the most reasonable mode of treat¬ 
ment was certainly to remove the irritant, but he (Mr. Gerrard) had 
found that if you depended altogether on removing the irritant by 
purgation you frequently lost your case, from the violence of the sym¬ 
ptoms, unless mitigated by a sedative. He could not say, however, that 
he had been so successful as Mr. Furnival, even although he had tried 
his prescription since the last night of meeting, for he lost the first case 
he tried it upon, only it turned out a twisted bowel, so that it was scarcely 
a fair test. Besides, the administration of chlorodyne to the horse, if it 
has to be often repeated it would be rather an expensive medicine, winch 
was against its general adoption, unless we could always depend upon its 
action. He had had the greatest success, by the adoption of the stimu¬ 
lating and anodyne treatment, followed up by a dose of aloes if the 
state of the bowels and other conditions of the patient, as to food and 
water, demanded it. 
One great objection to the treatment of colic by aloes was that you 
required the patient to be off work for a few days, whereas by the 
stimulating or sedative treatment you can usually, in ordinary cases, 
get fit for work in a few hours, which was frequently a matter of 
very much importance to your clients. 
With regard to the production of colic by the drinking of cold water 
he had frequently found that horses in certain agricultural districts were 
often the victims of it, from being worked too long without food or water, 
and allowed to drink at the troughs in the yard when brought in. In 
Lincolnshire this was frequently found to be the cause of colic and even 
enteritis, arising from the fact that they worked their horses such long 
hours—frequently from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, 
without food or water, whereas in Essex, where a different system of 
feeding and working prevails, colic is not so frequently met with ; so that 
under certain conditions of the stomach and intestines, cold water may 
produce colic, or even too greedy feeding after long fasting; and this 
pathological fact is strictly in keeping with the anatomy and physiology 
of the stomach and bowels of the horse. _ 
He regarded public drinking troughs in our large towns—-about 
