Symptoms.—If the horse has been carefully observed, restlessness and fever will have been seen to precede the attack. In many cases a direct shivering fit will occur; the mouth will be hot, and the nose red. The animal will soon express the most dreadful pain by pawing, striking at his belly, looking wildly at his flanks, groaning, and rolling. The pulse will be quickened and small; the ears and legs cold; the belly tender, and sometimes hot; the breathing quickened;
the bowels costive; and the animal becoming rapidly and fearfully weak.
The causes of this disease are, first of all and most frequently, sudden exposure to cold. If a horse that has been highly fed, carefully groomed, and kept in a warm stable, is heated with exercise, and has been during some hours without food, and in this state of exhaustion is suffered to drink freely of cold water, or is drenched with rain, or have his legs and belly washed with cold water, an attack of inflammation of the bowels will often follow. An overfed horse, subjected to severe and long-continued exertion, if his lungs were previously weak, will probably be attacked by inflammation of them; but if the lungs were sound, the bowels will on the following day be the seat of disease. Stones in the intestines are an occasional cause of inflammation, and colic neglected or wrongly treated will terminate in it.
Remedies.—The treatment of inflammation of the bowels, like that of the lungs, should be prompt and energetic. The first and most powerful means of cure will be bleeding. From six to eight or ten quarts of blood, in fact as much as the horse can bear, should be abstracted as soon as possible; and the bleeding repeated to the extent of four or five quarts more, if the pain is not relieved and the pulse has not become rounder and fuller. The speedy weakness that accompanies this disease, should not deter from bleeding largely. That weakness is the consequence of violent inflammation of these parts; and if that inflammation is subdued by the loss of blood, the weakness will disappear. The bleeding should be effected on the first appearance of the disease, for there is no malady that more quickly runs its course.
A strong solution of aloes should immediately follow the bleeding, but, considering the irritable state of the intestines at this period, guarded by opium. This should be quickly followed by back-raking, and injections consisting of warm water, or very thin gruel, in which Epsom salts or aloes have been dissolved; and too much fluid can scarcely be thrown up.
The horse should likewise be encouraged to drink plentifully of warm water or thin gruel; and draughts, each containing a couple of drachms of dissolved aloes, with a little opium, should be given every six hours, until the bowels are freely opened. It will now be prudent to endeavor to excite considerable external inflammation, as near as possible to the seat of internal disease, and therefore the whole of the belly should be blistered.
In a well-marked case of this disease, no time should be lost in applying fomentations, but the blister at once resorted to. The tincture of Spanish flies, whether made with spirits of wine or turpentine, should be thoroughly rubbed in. The legs should be well bandaged, in order to restore the circulation in them, and thus lessen the flow of blood to the inflamed part; and, for the same reason, the horse should be warmly clothed, but the air of the stable or box should be cool.
No grain or hay should be allowed during the disease, but bran mashes, and green food if it can be procured. The latter will be the best, and may be given without the slightest apprehension of danger. When the horse begins to recover, a handful of grain may be given two or three times in the day; and, if the weather is warm, he may be turned into a paddock for a few hours in the middle of the day. Clysters of gruel should be continued for three or four days after the inflammation is beginning to subside, and good hand-rubbing applied to the legs.