I go a little out of my limits to speak of this disease. I do so for four reasons. In the first place, the disease is deadly; it destroys more heavy draught-horses than all others put together. In the second place, 1 can show how it may be cured with infallible certainty, if it be taken in time. In the third place, the disease requires immediate relief; the horse may be dead, or past cure, before the medical assistant can be obtained. And in the fourth place, the nature of the disease and its treatment, are not known, or they are too little known by the veterinarian. These circumstances induce me to digress a little from the proper object of this work; and I think they are of sufficient importance to render apology unnecessary. I will, however, be brief. In another place I will enter into details which would be improper in this.

The Causes of Colic are rather numerous. I have already said that an overloaded stomach is one, particularly when water is given either immediately before, or immediately after an extraordinary allowance of food; but water directly after even an ordinary meal is never very safe. [It suspends digestion and occasions fermentation.] Another cause is violent exertion on a full stomach; a third cause, is a sudden change of diet, from hay, for instance, to grass, or from oats to barley; but an allowance, particularly a large allowance, of any food to which the horse has not been accustomed, is liable to produce colic. Some articles produce it oftener than others. Raw potatoes, carrots, turnips, green food, seem more susceptible of fermentation than hay or oats, barley more than beans; wheat and pease more than barley. Such at least they have seemed to me; but it is probable that in the cases from which I have drawn my conclusions, sudden change and quantity may have had as much to do in producing colic, as the fermentable nature of the food.

Haste in feeding is a common cause; if the horse swallow his food very greedily, without sufficient mastication, he is very liable to colic.

Heavy draught-horses are almost the only subjects of colic, and among the owners of them it is difficult to meet with an old farmer or carter who has not lost more than one. Light, fast-working horses are rarely troubled with it, and few die of it. The difference is easily explained. Heavy, slow-working horses are long in the yoke, they fast till their appetite is like a raven's; when they come home they get a large quantity of grain all at once, and they devour it in such hast that it is not properly masticated, and the stomach is sud denly overloaded. Possibly the quantity may not be very great, yet it is eaten too fast. The juice by which the food should be digested can not be made in such a hurry, at least not enough of it; and add to this the rapid distension of the stomach; more deliberate mastication and deglutition would enable this organ to furnish the requisite quantity of gastric juice, and to dilate sufficiently to contain the food with ease. In fast feeding, the stomach is taken too much by surprise.

Light horses are usually fed oftener, and with more regularity. They receive grain so often that they are not so fond of it; not disposed to eat too much; and the nature of their work often destroys the appetite, even when abstinence has been unusually prolonged.

The bulk of the food, however, has a great deal to do with this disease. An overloaded stomach will produce it in any kind of horse, but those who have the bowels and stomach habitually loaded are always in greatest danger. Horses tha get little grain must eat a large quantity of roots or of fodder as much as the digestive apparatus can control. The stomach and bowels can not act upon any more, and that which they can not act upon runs speedily into fermentation.

This seems to me the principal reason why slow-work horses are so much more liable to the disease than fast-workers. When the pace reaches seven or eight miles an hour, the belly will not carry a great bulk of food, and so much grain is given that the horse has no inclination to load his bowels with fodder. There is never, or very rarely, more food than the stomach, the bowels, and the juices of these, can act upon.

Symptoms Of Colic

The horse is taken suddenly ill. If at work, he slackens his pace, attempts to stop, and when he stops, he prepares to lie down; sometimes he goes down as if shot, the moment he stands or is allowed to stand; at slow work he sometimes quickens his pace and is unwilling to stand. In the stable he begins to paw the ground with his fore feet, lies down, rolls, sometimes quite over, lies on his back; when the distension is not great he lies tolerably quiet, and for several minutes. But when the distension and pain are greater, he neither stands nor lies a minute; he is no sooner down than he is up. He generally starts all at once, and throws himself down again with great violence. He strikes the belly with his hind feet, and in moments of comparative ease he looks wistfully at his flanks. When standing he makes many and fruitless attempts to urinate; and the keeper always declares there is "something wrong with the water." In a little while the belly swells all round, or it swells most on the right flank. The worst, the most painful cases, are those in which the swelling is general; sometimes it is very inconsiderable, the air being in small quantity, or not finding its way into the bowels. As the disease proceeds, the pain becomes more and more intense.

The horse dashes himself about with terrible violence. Every fall threatens to be his last. The perspiration runs off him in streams. His countenance betrays extreme agony, his contortions are frightfully violent, and seldom even for an instant suspended.

After continuing in this state for a brief period, other symptoms appear, indicating rupture or inflammation, or the approach of death without either. These, and the treatment they demand, I need not describe here. The horse may either be cured, or a veterinarian obtained, before inflammation or other consequences of the distension can take place.

Treatment Of Colic

The treatment consists in arresting the fermentation, and in re-establishing the digestive powers. There are many things that will do both. In mild cases a good domestic remedy in common use among oldfashioned people who have never heard of inflamed, spasmed, or strangulated bowels, is whiskey and pepper, or gin and pepper. About half a tumbler of spirits with a teaspoonful of pepper, given in a quart bottle of milk or warm water, will often afford immediate relief. If the pain do not abate in twenty or thirty minutes, the dose may be repeated, and even a third dose is in some cases necessary. Four ounces of spirits of turpentine, with twice as much sweet oil, is much stronger but if the horse is much averse to the medicine, turpentine is not always quite safe.

There is, however, a better remedy, which should always be in readiness wherever several draught-horses are kept. Take a quart of brandy, add to it four ounces of sweet spirit of nitre, three ounces of whole ginger, and three ounces of cloves. In eight days this mixture or tincture is ready for use; the cloves and ginger may still remain in the bottle, but they are not to be given. Set the bottle away, and put a la-ble upon it; call it the "Colic Mixture." The dose is six ounces, to be given in a quart of milk or warm water every fifteen or twenty minutes till the horse be cured. Keep his head straight, and not too high when it is given. Do not pull out his tongue, as some stupid people do, when giving a drink. If the horse be very violent, get him into a wide open place, where you will have room to go about him. If he will not stand till the drink be given, watch him when down, and give it, though he be lying, whenever you can get him to take a mouthful. But give the dose as quickly as possible. After that, rub the belly with a soft wisp, walk the horse about very slowly, or give him a good bed, and room to roll. In eighty cases out of ninety this treatment will succeed, provided the medicine be got down the horse's throat before his bowels become inflamed, or strangulated, or burst.

The delay of half an hour may be fatal.

When the second dose does not produce relief, the third may be of double or treble strength. I have given a full quart in about an hour, but the horse was very ill.

In many cases the horse takes ill during the night, and is far gone before he is discovered in the morning. In such a case this remedy may be too late, or it may not be proper; still, if the belly be swelled, let it be given, unless the veterinary surgeon can be procured immediately. In all cases it is proper to send for him at the beginning. You or your servants may not be able to give the medicine, or the disease may have produced some other, which this medicine will not cure. If the veterinarian can be got in a few minutes, do nothing till he comes. But do not wait long.

The horse is sometimes found dead in the morning; his belly is always much swelled, and the owner is suspicious of poisoning. I have known much vexation arise from such suspicion, when a single glance at the belly might have shown from what the horse died. There is no poison that will produce this swelling, which is sometimes so great as to burs the surcingle. On dissection the stomach is frequently burst, the belly full of food, water, and air, and the diaphragm ruptured. When death is slow, the bowels are always intensely inflamed, sometimes burst, and often twisted. But these things will never happen when the treatment I have recommended is adopted at the very beginning.

The horse sometimes takes the disease on the road. If his pace be fast, he should stop at once. To push him on beyond a walk, even for a short distance, is certain death. The bowels are displaced, twisted, and strangulated, partly by the distension, but aided a great deal by the exertion; and no medicine will restore them to their proper position. A walk after the medicine is good, and the pace should not pass a walk.