Part 2

Treatment. Remove the cause whether irritants in food, or drugs, sharp pointed bodies lodged in the tissues, injuries by bit, twitch or otherwise. Local applications have comparatively little effect, being promptly removed by the tongue, yet a lotion of vinegar and honey;—of borax 10 grains and honey or glycerine 1 oz.;—or of alum in a similar medium will often prove useful. A dose of laxative medicine will favor resolution, and if there is great tumefaction, feeding thick gruels from high manger, and tying to a high rack so as to prevent drooping of the head, will favor recovery. In snake bites and stings the local application of aqua ammonia and its administration internally (horse and cow 1 oz., sheep 2 dr. in 20 times its volume of water) should be practiced; or permanganate of potash may be used.

When the heat and tenderness subside, leaving much thickening and induration it may be repeatedly painted with a lotion of one part of tincture of iodine in three parts of glycerine.

CANCROID OF THE LIPS. EPITHELIOMA.

Epithelioma: Animals susceptible; accessory causes; symptoms; lesions. Treatment: Warts and polypi. Actinomycosis: Wounds; abrasions; infection atria. Symptoms; treatment. Trombidiosis: infected regions; not compulsory parasite; European and American trombidia; distinct from chigoe. Symptoms. Treatment.

This has been observed in the cat and the horse, commencing at the angle of the mouth and doubtless partially determined in the latter animal by the irritation of the bit.

It is characterized by thickening of the tissues of the lips, in the form of small irregularly rounded masses, and tending to the formation of a spreading ulcer. The thickened tissues are invaded, pushed aside and infiltrated by epithelial or epithelioid cells, which, no longer confined to the surface as in the natural state, grow in the interior of the tissues and destroy them.

Treatment. The disease has little tendency to cause secondary deposits in other organs and may often be arrested by local measures. In its earliest stages it may be arrested by the thorough removal of the diseased structures with the knife, the resulting deformity being obviated by bringing the raw edges together by suture, so as to secure their adhesion, or the actual cautery may be used. The tendency to irritation from putrefaction products escaping from the mouth may be counteracted by occasional sponging with a weak lotion of carbolic acid (1 part to 50 of water) or an ointment of one part of very finely powdered boracic acid to two parts of simple ointment.

Leblanc has repeatedly succeeded in these cases by the use of chlorate of potash, locally and generally. The local application may be a solution of two drachms in four ounces of water, while the dose of the powder for the horse is 2 to 4 drachms daily.

=Warts and Polypi.= These are common on the outer and even the inner side of the lips, especially in dogs. They are easily removed by the scissors, after which their roots should be thoroughly cauterized with a pointed stick of lunar caustic or chloride of zinc.

ACTINOMYCOSIS OF THE LIPS.

In the rich river bottom lands of northern Germany and Russia where actinomyces abound actinomycosis is common in the form of papillæ of greater or lesser size on the lips and nose of horse and ox. The abrasion of these parts by thorns, thistles, stubble, dry fibrous fodders and other irritants, appears to produce a raw surface for the colonization of the germ, which is not slow to avail of the opportunity. The resulting lesions take the appearance of warty looking elevations, more or less indurated, which on section show the sulphur yellow actinomyces tufts of club-shaped cells converging to a central mycelial mass.

Treatment is simple as the disease is at first essentially local, and is easily checked by the local application of iodine. The wartlike elevations may be shaved off with a razor or cut off with sharp scissors and the surface painted once or twice daily with tincture of iodine. If there is suspicion of distant or deepseated actinomycosis the internal treatment with potassium iodide will be in order.

TROMBIDIOSIS OF THE NOSE AND LIPS. HARVEST ITCH.

In different parts of Europe and America, and especially in the warmer regions, or in sheltered gardens, shrubberies, and pastures, different species of the trombidium abound, and the young hexapod larvæ attack man and beast, burrowing under the cuticle and giving rise to extreme itching and persistent and irritating rubbing of the affected part. These parasites belong to the family of acari or mites, so that the condition they produce is one of acariasis or mange, only the offender is not a compulsory parasite, but appears to survive in certain soils and in the vegetation independently of animal hosts. Their parasitism is therefore accidental and non-essential to their survival.

The trombidian parasite usually found in Europe is the Trombidium Holosericeum or silky trombidium, so small (in its larval state) that it is just visible to the naked eye as a bright scarlet point when moving on a dark background. It was formerly called Leptus Autumnalis and is familiarly known as the red beast, bete rouge, harvest bug, etc. The common American species is of a dull brick red, so that it is less easily detected even on a dark background. It is familiarly known as the jigger, though quite distinct from the chigoe or burrowing flea of the West Indies.

The domestic herbivora get these parasites on the nose and lips while browsing on the pastures and contract an intolerable itching which may lead to violent rubbing, abrasions and scabby exudations. The skin becomes thickened, scabby and rigid, and as new accessions are constantly received the malady continues until cold weather sets in. The affection is not in any sense dangerous, and the attacks may be warded off by a daily application of one of the common parasiticides—decoction of tobacco, tar water, solution of creolin, naphthalin, etc. The mere seclusion of the infested animal indoors, without green food, will cure, as the larvæ pass through their parasitic stage in a few days and drop off.

GENERAL CATARRHAL STOMATITIS. BUCCAL INFLAMMATION.

Mature animals most subject: Causes in horse, mechanical, chemical, microbian irritants—alkalies, acids, caustics, hot mashes, ferments, fungi, rank grasses, excess of chlorophyll, clover, alfalfa, acrid vegetables, bacterial infection secondary, acrid insects in food; symptomatic of gastritis, pharyngitis, diseased teeth, specific fevers. Symptoms: Congestion and tumefaction of buccal mucosa, lips and salivary glands; Epithelial desquamation; fœtor; salivation; froth; papules; vesicles. Prognosis. Treatment: Cool soft food; antiseptics; wet applications to skin; derivatives.

This is much more common in the adult than in suckling domestic animals. None of the domestic mammals or birds can be considered immune from it, but as its causes and manifestations differ somewhat it seems well to consider it separately in the different genera.

GENERAL CATARRHAL STOMATITIS IN SOLIPEDS.

Causes. These may be classed as mechanical, chemical, microbian and other irritants. In the horse it is often due to the reckless administration of irritant liquids as remedies. Owing to the length of the soft palate the horse can refuse to swallow any liquid as long as he chooses, and some of the worst cases of stomatitis I have seen resulted from the retention in the mouth of caustic alkaline liquids given under the name of “weak lye.” Strong acids and caustic salts dissolved in too little water or other excipient, or suspended in liquids in which they cannot dissolve, or made into boluses which are crushed between the teeth are not infrequent conditions. Too hot mashes given to a hungry horse is another cause of this trouble. Fermented or decomposed food is often most irritating. Coachmen will sometimes induce it by attaching to the bit bags of spicy or irritant agents, to cause frothing and make the animal appear spirited.

Fungi in fodders are among the common causes. The rust of wheat (puccinia graminis), the caries of wheat (tilletia caries), the blight (erysiphe communis), ergot (claviceps purpurea), the fungus of rape (polydesmus excitiosus) and the moulds (penicillium and puccinia) have all been noticed to coincide with stomatitis, and charged with producing it. On the other hand, at given times, one or other of these cryptogams has been present extensively in the fodder without any visible resultant stomatitis. The apparent paradox may be explained by the fact that these fungi vary greatly in the irritant or harmless nature of their products according to the conditions under which they have grown, and the stage of their development at which they were secured and preserved. Ergot notoriously differs in strength in different years, on different soils, under various degrees of sunshine, shade, cloud, fog, etc. In different States in the Mississippi valley it is not uncommon to find stomatitis in horses in winter, fed on ergoted hay, while cattle devouring the same fodder have dry gangrene of feet, tail and ears. Yet in other seasons the ergot fails to produce these lesions. Rank grown, watery vegetation, especially if it contains an excess of chlorophyll is liable to cause stomatitis. Red and white clover, trefoil, hybrid and purple clover, and alfalfa have all acted more or less in this way, though in many cases, the food has become musty or attacked by bacterial ferments. Some of the strongly aromatic plants, and those containing acrid principles (cicuta virosa, œnanthe crocata, mustard, etc.) cause buccal inflammation and salivation.

The irritation in many such cases is not due to one agent only, the vegetable or other irritant may be the starting point, acting but as a temporary irritant, the action of which is supplemented and aggravated by the subsequent attacks of bacterial ferments on the inflamed, weakened or abraded tissues. The bacteria present in the mouth, food or water would have had no effect whatever upon the healthy mucosa, while they make serious inroads on the diseased. On the other hand the vegetable, mechanical or chemical irritant would have had but a transient effect, but for the supplementary action of the bacteria.

In horses that have the bad habit of retaining masses of half masticated food in the cheeks the growth of cryptogams is greatly enhanced and such food often becomes violently irritating.

Among other mechanical causes may be named pointed or barbed hairs or spines (barley awns, spikes, thorns, etc.) which, lodging in a gland orifice, or in a wound of the gum or mucosa, form a source of irritation or a centre for bacterial growth and abscess.

Again, irritants of animal origin must be named. These are not taken by choice, but when lodged in fodder, or in the pastures they are taken in inadvertently with the food. In this way poisonous insects, and especially hairy caterpillars, cantharides, potato bugs, etc., gain access to the mouth.

It must not be overlooked that stomatitis occurs as an extension, sympathetic affection or sequel of diseases of other organs. Gastritis is usually attended by redness and congestive tenderness of the tongue, especially of the tip and margins, and other parts of the buccal mucosa, notably the palate just back of the incisors, are often involved. In other cases it appears as a complication of pharyngitis, laryngitis, of affections of the lower air passages, of the teeth and periodontal membrane or of the salivary glands.

It appears also in a specific form in certain fevers, as in horsepox, pustulous stomatitis, aphthous fever and even in strangles. Mercurial stomatitis, rarely seen at the present time, is one of the worst forms of the disease, and like the infectious forms will be treated separately.