COLICS IN HORSES. 
71 
aggravated and more marked at each renewal of the struggle. 
The animal loses more and more its instinct of conservation, and 
recklessly throws himself down by his own weight, regardless of 
pain or possible injury. The respiration increases more and 
more; the heart beats strongly, the arteries still remaining de¬ 
pressed; the pulse, first thready, becomes less and less percepti¬ 
ble ; the mucous membranes become injected, and at times cyan¬ 
otic, and an abundant and cold perspiration covers the body. 
Soon a deceptive appearance of improvement presents itself— 
generally an infallible sign of a termination close at hand—the 
patient seems to become more calm ; he stands back at the end of 
his halter; his legs are wide apart; his features are still charac¬ 
terized by an expression of the violent agony he has endured; his 
respiration becomes more accelerated; he is pulseless. And then 
the coolness of the body is more and more marked ; he lies down, 
generally now in a careful manner, stretches his legs, and with a 
few slight convulsive efforts, expires. The battle is over; the 
victim has. succumbed, exhausted by the violent pain which has 
tortured him, and which has been followed by successive altera¬ 
tions in all the functions of the organism. 
Let us add to this description that even in slightly severe 
colics all the functions of the gastro-intestinal canal and of the 
bladder are stopped. There is paralysis of the muscular coat of 
these organs, and as a consequence the passage of the food and 
of the gases from the stomach and intestines is arrested, while 
micturation is also suspended. It is a remarkable clinical fact 
that during stomachal or intestinal colics there is a cessation in 
the function of the bladder. The patient often stretches himself 
to micturate, but fails. In a differential diagnostical point of 
view, as well as in the consideration of questions of treatment, 
we shall have to re-consider subsequently this paralytical condi¬ 
tion in the'generality of colics. 
To resume : Violent pains, whether continuous or intermittent, 
giving rise to struggles more or less violent; accelerated respira¬ 
tion ; pulse at first normal or even slow, then accelerated and 
thready, or even absent, according to the results; frequent bor- 
borygmus, sometimes absent; constipation, or only expulsion of 
