Part 28

Cleanliness in food and surroundings is among the most important measures, and if the skin has been filthy, repeated washing with soap and warm water may be resorted to with great benefit.

CHRONIC GASTRIC CATARRH IN SOLIPEDS.

Causes: Debility, age, anæmia, leucæmia, lymph gland, kidney, heart or lung disease, parasitism, dental or salivary disease, coarse, fibrous food, spoiled food, putrid water, gastric neoplasms. Symptoms: Impaired appetite, eating lime or earth, weariness, costiveness, coated dung, tympanies, diarrhœas, fatigue, sweating, unthrifty hide, pallid mucosæ, emaciation, colics. Lesions: Thickened right gastric mucosa, discoloration, mucus, petechiæ, opaque granular epithelium, gastric dilatation. Treatment: Remove causes, diet, watering, exercise, sunshine, bismuth, pepsin, acids, bitters, electricity, antiseptics, stomachics.

Causes. These are in the main the causes which operate in producing the acute affection. In most chronic cases they act continuously on a system rendered susceptible by debility or otherwise. Among predisposing causes may be named: The debility of old age, anæmia, leucæmia, chronic diseases of the lymph glands, of the liver, kidney, heart, or lung, parasitic diseases, diseases of the jaws, teeth, or salivary glands which interfere with proper mastication and insalivation. Among exciting causes may be named: A coarse, fibrous, innutritious diet, a too bulky diet, spoiled fodders of all kinds, putrid drinking water, and stomach parasites (spiroptera, œstrus larva). Actual disease of the stomach—papilloma, cancer, actinomycosis, tumors, and oat-hair or other concretions are further causes.

Symptoms. Impaired or capricious appetite, a disposition to lick the walls or earth, or to drink impure water, yawning, constipation with glossy mucus-covered fæces, and slight tympany, alternating with diarrhœa, small, accelerated pulse, susceptibility to perspiration and fatigue on slight exertion, unthrifty skin and hair, hide-bound, dry, hot mouth, coated tongue, pallor of the mucous membranes, loss of condition, and increasing weakness. Slight colics may occur at intervals, and the sluggishness may deepen into stupor or vertigo.

Lesions. The right sac is usually the seat of more or less hypertrophy of the mucosa, which is thickened, rugose, with patches of dark red, gray and slate color, and covered with a layer of tenacious mucus. The surface may show warty-like elevations, or papillary projections, with here and there patches of blood extravasation. The epithelial cells are increased, opaque and contain many fatty granules.

Dilatation of the stomach is not uncommon especially in old horses, and then the mucosa may be attenuated and smooth.

Hyperthermia may be present, but is so slight that inflammation cannot be predicated from it and it is difficult to establish a diagnosis from chronic dyspepsia.

Treatment. It is important to first correct any curable predisposing disorder, in teeth, jaws, salivary glands, blood, or internal organs, to carefully regulate feeding, watering and work, to secure as far as possible an outdoor life, and to employ bitter and other tonics. All over-exertion or fatigue must be carefully avoided. The food may be as advised for the more acute affection. Costiveness may be best met by boiled flaxseed, or in case of necessity by bran mashes, or green food. The irritation of the stomach may be benefited by nitrate of bismuth (3 to 4 drs.) and pepsin, and dilute muriatic acid with each meal are often of value. Nux Vomica (10 to 25 grs. twice daily) will help to restore the lost tone, and a current of electricity may be sent through the epigastrium daily. As alternatives, sulphate of quinia or gentian may replace the nux, and salol or salicylate of bismuth may take the place of the nitrate. Bicarbonate of soda in ½ dr. doses, common salt in ½ oz. doses, and fennel in ½ oz. doses are sometimes useful in re-establishing gastric functions.

CHRONIC GASTRITIS IN RUMINANTS.

Causes: As in acute form, parasites, gravid womb, insufficient ration, overwork, exhaustive milking, chronic diseases. Symptoms: deranged appetite, rumination, pica, eructations, regurgitations, tympanies, colics after feeding, coated dung, diarrhœa, fever, hot clammy mouth, sunken eyes, small weak pulse, palpitations, emaciation, weakness, tender hypochondrium. Lesions: hypertrophy of gastric mucosa, granular epithelium. Treatment: tonic regimen, diet, green food, roots, sunshine, bismuth, salol, strychnia, pepsin, muriatic acid, common salt, counter-irritants.

Causes. These are in the main the causes of the acute affection. There may, however, be special persistent factors like parasites (strongylus contortus and filicollis, spiroptera) in the stomach, the pressure of a gravid womb, an alimentation deficient in lime or phosphorus, overwork, exhausting milking, or chronic disease of important organs (heart, liver, lung, kidney).

Symptoms. These are indefinite and not easily distinguished from those of disorders of the third stomach. There is impaired or capricious appetite, a disposition to eat lime, earth, and all sorts of non-alimentary objects, rumination is rare or altogether suspended, efforts to regurgitate are ineffectual, or result in gaseous eructations only, there are tympanies and abdominal pains especially after feeding, and constipation with a firm glazed appearance of any fæces passed, may alternate for a short time with diarrhœa. The mouth is hot and clammy, the eyes sunken and semi-closed, the pulse small and weak, though the heart may palpitate, and there is a constantly progressive emaciation and prostration. Among the more characteristic symptoms are tenderness of the right hypochondrium to manipulation and percussion, and the presence of slight hyperthermia.

Lesions. The changes consist mainly in hypertrophy of the gastric mucosa, with changes in the epithelium and submucosa such as are already described in the horse. The pyloric region suffers most, and here ulcers are not at all uncommon.

Treatment. The main aim must be to remove the causes, and to build up the general health, so that the patient may rise above the debilitating conditions. More is to be expected from the change of diet to green food, roots, mashes, etc., and an outdoor life than from the action of medicines, which are liable to disappear by absorption in the first three stomachs, so that they can only act on the fourth through the system at large. Yet benefit may be expected from the use of nitrate of bismuth, and salol, as calmatives and antiferments, nux vomica as a tonic and even from pepsin and muriatic acid as digestive agents. The two last are not dependent on the fourth stomach for their activity but will digest the contents more or less in the first three, and the finely disintegrated and partly peptonized ingesta coming to the fourth stomach in a less irritating, and less fermentescible condition, lessens the work demanded of that organ and gives a better opportunity for recuperation. Small doses of common salt and one or other of the carminative seeds may be added. The application of mustard or oil of turpentine to the right hypochondrium will sometimes assist in giving a better tone to the organ.

CHRONIC GASTRITIS IN SWINE.

Causes. Symptoms: inappetence, dullness, arched back, colic, irregular bowels, fever, emaciation. Treatment: diet, green food, milk, mashes, cleanliness, bismuth, salol, sodium bicarbonate, strychnia, pepsin, muriatic acid, sunshine, washing.

Causes. These are like those producing the acute affection which may easily merge into this by a continuation of such causes.

The symptoms too are alike. Inappetence, dullness, prostration, arched back, vomiting, colic, constipation, with alternating diarrhœa. There is hyperthermia with hot dry snout, thirst, increasing emaciation, and anæmia.

Treatment. An entire change of diet, to green food, roots, fresh milk, and soft mashes in limited quantity. Allow pure water freely. Adopt all precautions against contamination of the food by the feet or snout. The stomach may be quieted by oxide of bismuth (20 grs.) or salol (10 grs.) two or three times daily, and the tone and secretions of the stomach may be stimulated by bicarbonate of soda (1 dr.) and nux vomica (1 to 2 grs.) thrice daily. In addition pepsin and muriatic acid may be given with each meal in proportion adapted to its amount. A life in the open air, and an occasional soapy wash will do much to restore healthy gastric functions.

CHRONIC GASTRITIS IN THE DOG.

Causes: faults in diet, musty food, foreign bodies, poisons, lack of sunshine, retained fæces, parasites, ill health, chronic diseases, icy bath, septic drink. Symptoms: irregular appetite and bowels, fever, foul breath, red tongue, tartar on teeth, dullness, prostration, vomiting of mucus or bile, tender epigastrium, arched back, fœtid stools, emaciation. Treatment: regulate diet, sunshine, pure water, scraped muscle, soups without fat, antiseptics, calomel, pepsin, muriatic acid, strychnia.

Causes. The irregularity and variability of the food, overfeeding, highly spiced foods, putrid or spoiled food, musty food, the swallowing of pieces of bone, and of indigestible bodies, the consumption of poisons, the absence of open air exercise, the compulsory suspension of defecation in house dogs, and the presence in the stomach of worms (spiroptera, strongylus), are among the common causes of the affection. As in other animals, ill health, debility, lack of general tone, and chronic diseases of important organs (liver, kidney, heart, lungs) must be taken into account. The plunging into cold water when heated and the licking of septic water must also be named.

Symptoms. Appetite is poor or irregular, the nose dry and hot, the mouth fœtid, the tongue reddened around the borders and furred on its dorsum, the teeth coated with tartar, the animal dull and prostrate, vomits frequently a glairy mucus mixed with alimentary matters or yellow with bile, and there is constipation alternating with diarrhœa. The epigastrium is tender to the touch, the back arched, the fæces glazed with mucus or streaked with blood, and offensive in odor. Emaciation advances rapidly and death may occur from marasmus.

Treatment. Adopt the same general plan of treatment. Stop all offensive and irritating food, give regular outdoor exercise, free access to pure water, and every facility to attend to the calls of nature. Give plain easily digestible food in small amount. In the worst cases pulped or scraped raw meat, in the less severe mush, or well-prepared soups with the fat skimmed off, and bread added. Check the irritant fermentations in the stomach by salol, bismuth, salicylate of bismuth, or naphthol. In case of constipation give 8 to 10 grs. calomel. Then assist digestion by pepsin (5 grs.) and hydrochloric acid (10 drops) in water with each meal. If the bitterness is not an objection 1 gr. nux vomica may also be added.

ULCERATION OF THE STOMACH.

Causes: peptic digestion, paresis, caustics, irritants, acids, alkalies, salts, mechanical irritants, hot food, parasites, thrombosis, embolism, specific disease poisons, aneurism, tumors, infective growths, nervous disorder, debility, toxins of diphtheria, staphylococcus, etc. Symptoms: slight colics, tympany, emaciation, vomiting blood, tender epigastrium, dark or bloody stools, irregular bowels; in carnivora abdominal decubitus, arched back, bloody, mucous, acid vomit, colics after meals. Lesions: in horse erosions, ulcers, parasites, neoplasms, discolorations, extravasations; in cattle and dogs on folds, nature of ulcer. Treatment: restricted, digestible diet, lavage, anodynes, bismuth, antacids, antiseptics, salol, naphthol, chloral, pure water.

Causes. Gastric ulcers may arise from quite a variety of causes which determine necrotic conditions of the mucosa and the gradual invasion of the resulting lesion by destructive microbes. One of the simplest factors is the peptic juice, the stomach, being struck with paresis (in inflammation, fever, nervous disorder), while containing a quantity of its secretion, undergoes an autodigestion which affects particularly the lowest (pyloric) portion, toward which the liquid gravitates, and the free edges of the folds which are the most exposed to its action.