Part 23

Causes. The causes are almost identical with those set forth under infective gastro-enteritis of the suckling, acting however with less force, or on a less susceptible system. Overloading and the resulting paresis; unsuitable milk from another genus, or from unhealthy, overworked, or over-fed specimens of the same genus; the ingestion of hard, insoluble, indigestible or toxic aliments, and exposure to cold and wet are among the most common direct causes. As secondary causes are overfeeding of the cows, and bringing up the calves on the pail with all kinds of substitutes for the milk of the mother.

Symptoms. Dullness, lack of sportiveness and of appetite. The patient lies down a good deal, but is nervous or restless, and when up shows colicy pains by movements of the tail and hind limbs. He may moan gently or bellow frequently. The muzzle is dry, the mouth clammy, hot and sour, the abdominal muscles rigid and the belly often somewhat swollen, and resonant on percussion. Acid eructations are common. At first there is costiveness, but in a few hours diarrhœa sets in and usually proves critical, clearing away the offensive and irritant materials and paving the way for recovery. The tension of the belly lessens, by degrees, the appetite returns, the bowels resume their normal tone and in twenty-four or forty-eight hours health may be fully restored.

There is, however, always danger of the supervention of gastro-enteritis of which in many instances the above-named symptoms indicate the first stage. In all cases it interferes with the growth and fattening of the subject.

Lesions. We observe the presence in the stomach of masses of coagulated milk, undigested, mixed with an excess of mucus, and exhaling a sour or even a septic odor. The mucosa is more or less red and congested with swelling and opacity of the epithelium. The bowels also contain the undigested flocculi of casein, more or less fermented and which have escaped the action of the peptic liquids.

Prevention. This consists in the avoidance of the causes, and as these are in the main the accessory causes of infective gastro-enteritis in the suckling, it will save repetition to refer to the article on that subject.

Treatment. In an attack which is caused and maintained by undigested and irritant materials in the stomach, the first consideration must be the elimination of these offensive matters. An ounce of castor oil with a teaspoonful of laudanum for calf or foal will usually effect this purpose. Or ½ oz. calcined magnesia or carbonate of magnesia, or of manna 2½ drs. or cream of tartar may be substituted for the oil. The addition of a carminative or stimulant (1 dr. syrup of anise, or tincture of cinnamon, 1 oz. whisky or brandy, or ½ oz. oil of turpentine for calf or foal) will often check the diarrhœa and fermentation.

In weak subjects the stimulant may be used with a drachm of chalk or of bicarbonate of soda, and 5 grains powdered nux vomica.

In all cases alike the use of rennet is very advantageous. One-eighth of a calf’s rennet being steeped in a bottle of sherry wine and the liquid given to the amount of a tablespoonful (½ oz.) with each drink. This secures proteid digestion and checks fermentation thereby hindering the formation of the offensive products which maintain the irritation and disorder.

INFECTIVE GASTRO-ENTERITIS IN CALVES, LAMBS AND FOALS. WHITE SCOUR.

Causes: early life, exclusive activity of fourth stomach, faulty milk, absence of colostrum, milk from advanced lactation, milk of other genus, or altered by excitement, or unwholesome food, excess on hungry stomach, soured, fermented, feverish milk, putrid milk, leucomaines, overdistension of stomach, farinaceous food, hair balls, morning and evening milk, milk after first calf, composition of milk by genus, ruminant’s milk to monogastric animal, infectious microbes—bacilli, micrococci. Symptoms: costiveness, inappetence, listlessness, tense abdomen, acid eructations, fœtid diarrhœa, becoming yellow or white, general fœtor, staring coat, pallid mucosæ, tucked up tender abdomen, weakness, emaciation, fever, bloating, frothy dejections, arthritis, peritonitis, pneumonitis, hepatitis, ophthalmia, laminitis, etc. Mortality: in foals, calves, lambs. Lesions: gastric and intestinal congestions, exudations, necrosis, incoagulable blood in foals, anæmia. Prevention: normal feeding, expulsion of meconium, care of nurse, adapt composition of cow’s milk to genus of nursling, warmth, lime water, rubber teat, Pasteurizing, disinfection, separation from infected animals and places, breed from robust parents. Treatment: elimination, antiseptics, boiling milk, rennet, ipecacuan, carminatives, astringents, tar, calomel and chalk, gum, flaxseed, elm bark.

Causes. The abomasum in the adult is protected against disorder, by the normal activity of the first three stomachs, macerating the food, presiding over the second and more perfect mastication, grinding it between the omasal folds into a firmly attenuated pulp and delaying its progress so that it arrives at the fourth stomach at short intervals and in small quantities only at a time. It follows that this organ is rarely involved in serious disorder unless as the result of the ingestion of poisons, or of excess of water, or from the presence of parasites. In the very young ruminant, however, the condition is reversed, the first three stomachs are as yet undeveloped, and incapable of receiving more than the smallest quantity of food or of retaining the same, and the abomasum alone is functionally active and receives at once practically everything that may be swallowed. In the first few weeks of life therefore the ruminant is exposed to almost the same dangers, from overloading, indigestion, inflammation and poisoning as is the monogastric animal. For the time, indeed, the undeveloped ruminant is in its physiological and pathological relations, a monogastric animal. For this early life therefore whatever applies to the soliped applies equally well to the ruminant.

When allowed to suck at will from a healthy nurse, which completed its gestation about the time the young animal was born, indigestion is rare. But whatever interferes with the normal supply is liable to cause derangement. The withholding of the first milk—colostrum—the laxative properties of which are essential to clear away the intestinal accumulations of fœtal life—meconium; the placing of new-born offspring on the milk of nurses that bore their young many months before; bringing up of foals on cow’s milk; working, overdriving, hunting, shipping by rail, or otherwise exciting the dams; allowing too long intervals between the meals—feeding morning and night only, or morning, noon and night, the nurse being kept at work or pasture in the interval; feeding unwholesome food to the nurse; bringing up by hand, on cold and even soured milk, or that which has become contaminated by putrid leavings in the unscalded buckets. Some of these causes should be emphasized, for example the milk of excitement and fever, milk that is soured or putrid, and milk suddenly swallowed in excess. The nurse which is fevered or subjected to over-exertion has produced an excess of tissue waste and leucomaines which largely escape from the system in the milk. This milk is therefore at times unwholesome and even poisonous. Mares subjected to severe work or that fret much under lighter work, cows carried by car or boat, or driven violently, and any nursing animal which has been thrown into a fever from any cause whatever, is liable to yield toxic milk. This would include the milk of all severe diseases, as being liable to become charged with toxins and ptomaines and thus poison the young animal, which subsists upon it as an exclusive diet, even though the actual pathogenic microbe may not be present in the secretion.

With regard to fermented milk, that which has been simply soured, relaxes the bowels and the attendant congestion contributes to further derangement and even infection by any pathogenic germ which may be present, or by microbes which are habitually saprophytic, but take occasion to dangerously attack the weakened mucosa. If the milk has undergone putrefaction in the feeding bucket, the co-existence of the septic germ and the septic ptomaines and toxins, often determines indigestion and irritation of the mucosa. These poisons may further be absorbed and produce general constitutional disorder which reacts most injuriously on the stomach and digestion.

Milk swallowed rapidly and in excess by a hungry calf or foal, overdistends the stomach, which, like other hollow viscera in such conditions, is rendered paretic or paralytic, and suffers from suspension of both the vermicular contractions and the peptic secretions. Under these conditions the milk, which is one of the most admirable culture media for bacterial ferments, undergoes rapid decomposition, with the production of a series of toxins and ptomaines varying according to the different kinds of microbes that may be present. Under such conditions microbes which are normally harmless, vigorously and destructively attack the mucous membrane and determine some of the worst types of juvenile diarrhœa.

In artificial feeding there is another serious danger. Calves in particular are brought up largely on gruels made from farinaceous material. These contain a large quantity of starch which requires the action of the saliva (ptyaline) to resolve it into glucose, and fit it for absorption. But in the early days of life the salivary glands are almost entirely inactive, and it is only as the first three stomachs develop that this secretion becomes normally abundant. This is sought to be met by fixing in the feeding bucket a rubber teat, which the young animal is made to suck so as to solicit the secretion of saliva. The benefit obtained is however more from the slower ingestion of the milk than from any material increase of saliva from the as yet functionally inactive glands.

The presence of hair balls in the stomach, derived from the skin of themselves or others is one of the most injurious of the causes of juvenile indigestion. Lying as these do at this early age in the one well developed stomach they interfere with its normal secretions, and being at first open in texture they become saturated with putrefying ingesta, which gives out the most poisonous products.

The milk is materially affected by the food eaten by the nursing animal and such variations in the milk tend at times to derange a weak stomach. The following table from Becquerel and Vernois gives the results of dry and succulent food on the amount of the different proximate principles in the milk.

───────────────────────────────┬──────┬──────────┬──────┬───────┬────── │ │Casein and│Milk, │ │ │Water.│extractive│Sugar.│Butter.│Salts. │Parts │ matter. │Parts │ Parts │Parts │ in │ Parts in │ in │ in │ in Nature of Food. │1,000.│ 1,000. │1,000.│1,000. │1,000. ───────────────────────────────┼──────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼────── Cows on winter feed: │ │ │ │ │ Trefoil or lucerne 12–13 │ │ │ │ │ lbs.; oat straw, 9–10 │ │ │ │ │ lbs.; beets, 7 lbs.; │ │ │ │ │ water, 2 buckets │871.26│ 47.81│ 33.47│ 42.07│ 5.34 Cows on summer feed: │ │ │ │ │ Green trefoil, lucerne, │ │ │ │ │ maize, barley, grass and 2│ │ │ │ │ buckets water │859.56│ 54.7│ 36.38│ 42.76│ 6.30 Goats milk on different │ │ │ │ │ rations: │ │ │ │ │ Straw and trefoil │858.68│ 47.38│ 35.47│ 52.54│ 5.92 Beets │888.77│ 33.81│ 38.02│ 33.68│ 5.72 ───────────────────────────────┴──────┴──────────┴──────┴───────┴──────

The decrease of the solids but especially of the casein, sugar, and salts is very marked in the cow on poor winter feeding. In the goat fed on beets alone the increase of sugar and decrease of other solids is striking.

To the same effect speaks the following table giving the results of an experiment with a ration of corn and cob meal, in contrast with one of sugar meal. Each cow had a common ration of 12 lbs. corn fodder and 4 lbs. clover hay, in addition to the test diet which was 12½ lbs. corn and cobmeal in the one case, and 10 lbs. sugar meal in the other. To avoid the misleading effects of a sudden transition from one food to the other, each special ration was fed for seven days before the commencement of each test period.

───────────────────────────┬──────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬──────┬────────── │ │ │ │ │ │ Ratio of │ │Fat. │ │ │ │ fat to │Milk. │ Per │ │Fat. │Solids│solids not Animal and Ration. │ Lbs. │Cent.│Solids│Lbs. │ Lbs. │ fat. ───────────────────────────┼──────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼──────┼────────── Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │ 1st 21 days: Corn and cob│ │ │ │ │ │ meal │631.25│ 3.43│ 11.57│21.67│ 73.02│422. :1000 2d 21 days: Sugar meal │641.50│ 4.04│ 12.53│25.93│ 83.38│476.2:1000 3d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │ meal │559.00│ 3.22│ 11.86│17.97│ 66.32│371.7:1000 Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │ 1st 21 days: Corn and Cob│ │ │ │ │ │ meal │604.75│ 3.57│ 11.95│21.56│ 72.28│425.1:1000 2d 21 days: Sugar meal │582.00│ 3.91│ 12.37│22.74│ 72.57│456.3:1000 3d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │ meal │527.00│ 3.37│ 12.05│17.78│ 63.48│389.1:1000 Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │ 1st 21 days: Sugar meal │753.50│ 3.97│ 12.43│29.94│ 93.67│469.8:1000 2d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │ meal │601.50│ 3.15│ 11.45│18.97│ 68.89│380.0:1000 3d 21 days: Sugar meal │560.50│ 3.85│ 12.16│21.58│ 68.16│463.3:1000 Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │ 1st 21 days: Sugar meal │487.50│ 4.15│ 13.27│20.25│ 64.69│455.6:1000 2d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │ meal │379.00│ 3.51│ 12.00│13.30│ 48.09│382.3:1000 3d 21 days: Sugar meal │374.50│ 3.72│ 13.01│13.95│ 48.74│401.0:1000 ───────────────────────────┴──────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴──────┴──────────

Here we find a material increase of the solids and particularly of the fat whenever the sugar (gluten) meal, rich in fat and albuminoids was furnished. It is interesting to note the relative amount of fat and albuminoids in the corn and cobmeal mixture as compared with the sugar meal.

Constituents. Corn and cob meal. Sugar meal. Per Cent. Per Cent. Water 13.37 6.10 Salts 1.43 1.17 Fat 2.81 11.16 Carb-hydrates 65.99 52.66 Woody fibre 8.03 8.64 Proteids 8.37 20.27 —Bulletin: Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station.

Such variations in the quality of the milk under different rations, occasionally affect the weak stomach of the new born, and as the same constitution is likely to predominate in the same herd, a number may be attacked together as a result of some change in feeding.

Other conditions, however, lead to variation in quality. Hassall found that the morning milk of the cow furnished 7.5 per cent. of cream, while the evening milk gave 9.5 per cent. Boedecker found that morning milk had 10 per cent. of solids and evening milk 13 per cent. The first drawn at any milking is poorer in cream than that which is drawn last. The first may have only one-half or in extreme cases one-fourth of the cream that the strippings have. When the cow is in heat the milk not only contains more of the solids, but has granular and white blood cells like colostrum and often disagrees with the young animal. The milk of the young cow with her first calf is usually more watery than that of the adult, and that of the old one has a greater tendency to become acid. The longer the period which has elapsed since calving the greater the tendency to an excess of salts. Certain breeds like the Channel Island cattle produce an excess of butter fat (4–5 per cent.), whereas others like Holsteins, Ayrshires and Short Horns have less on an average (3–4 percent.), the casein and, it may be, the water predominating. Hence Jersey and Guernsey milk will scour calves which do well on that of one of these other breeds.

Overkept, fermented and soured food tends to produce acidity and other changes in the milk. Old brewers’ grains, swill, and spoiled gluten meal, or ensilage, especially such as has been put up too green, are especially injurious to the milk. The milk of cows fed on raw Swedish turnips or cabbage acquires a bitter taste and odor.

The milk of different genera of animals offer such strong contrasts that it is always dangerous to attempt to bring up the young of one genus upon the milk of another. The following table giving the composition of the milk in woman and each of the domestic mammals serves to illustrate this and to furnish a basis for adjustment:

───────────────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬─────── │Woman. │ Cow. │ Goat. │ Ewe. │Camel.│ Mare. │ Ass. │ Sow. │Bitch. ───────────────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼─────── Density │1032.67│1033.38│1033.53│1040.98│ │1033.74│1034.57│ │1041.62 Water │ 889.08│ 864.06│ 844.90│ 832.32│ │ 904.30│ 890.12│854.90│ 772.08 Solids │ 110.92│ 135.94│ 155.10│ 167.68│134.00│ 95.70│ 109.88│145.10│ 227.92 Butter │ 26.66│ 36.12│ 56.87│ 51.31│ 36.00│ 24.36│ 18.53│ 19.50│ 87.95 Casein and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ extractive │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ matters │ 39.24│ 55.15│ 55.14│ 69.78│ 40.00│ 33.35│ 35.65│ 84.50│ 116.88 Sugar │ 43.64│ 38.03│ 36.91│ 39.43│ 58.00│ 32.76│ 50.46│ 30.30│ 15.29 Salts(by │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ incineration)│ 1.38│ 6.64│ 6.18│ 7.16│ │ 5.23│ 5.24│ 10.90│ 7.80 ───────────────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴─────── Becquerel and Vernois.