Part 39

Symptoms. In the mildest form there is hyperthermia, thirst, insensible loins, scanty, high colored urine, costive bowels, a few small pellets only being passed at a time, hard, dry and covered with a mucous film, hot, clammy mouth, coated tongue, with redness along the edges and tip, yellowish red eyes, impaired appetite, dull, sluggish habit, a tendency to hang back on the halter, and a steady loss of flesh and increased dryness and unthriftiness of the coat. Slight, intermittent colics occurring especially after meals and attended by loud rumbling of the bowels are marked features. This may be followed by slight relaxation of the bowels and recovery in about a week, unless it should become complicated by intestinal indigestion or impaction, or should merge into the acute form.

In the more intense forms all symptoms are aggravated. There is anorexia and even refusal of water, dullness and prostration are well marked, the head carried low, and the gait is unsteady. The mouth is hot with tenacious mucus, and a fœtid odor; the tongue is furred and red at the tip and margins, the eye is sunken, the conjunctiva icteric, the face pinched, and the pulse accelerated. Hyperthermia may reach 104° F. Breathing may be almost normal, or with fever, may become rapid and accompanied by a pleuritic ridge on the flank. The back is slightly arched and rigid, the belly drawn up and tender, after meals it may be tympanitic, and colics set in or are aggravated, pawing, uneasy movements of the hind limbs, and lying down to rise again shortly, with frequent looking at the flanks being noticeable.

Defecations are at first abundant and coated with mucus, later the balls are small and scanty and expelled with much effort. From the first the everted rectum is of a very deep red. Toward the end of the first day or later the intestinal rumbling increases, flatus passes freely, and diarrhœa may set in and prove critical. This usually indicates disease in the colon and tends to recovery; it may be entirely absent if the inflammation is confined to the duodenum, the effused liquid being re-absorbed from the cæcum and colon. If the diarrhœa should prove critical there is a return of appetite and spirit, the fæcal discharges become firmer and recovery takes place in a week. If, however, the diarrhœa becomes more profuse and bloody, the colics more intense, the eyes more sunken and hopeless, the face more pinched and anxious, and the temperature reduced to or below the normal, with great weakness and debility, the near approach of death may be feared. This state of collapse may be further marked by extreme coldness, or dropsy of the limbs, increased icterus, hurried breathing and rapid loss of flesh.

A prominent icterus indicates implication of the liver from the ascent of the infecting germs through the bile ducts, or the passage of microbes or their products or both through the portal vein. In either case it is a serious complication.

Prognosis. In its uncomplicated form the disease is not very fatal to vigorous, mature horses, though more trying to the young. If infective germs or their products implicate the liver producing marked jaundice, or if the general system is poisoned by the microbes or their toxins, producing marked depression and prostration the danger is enormously enhanced.

Treatment. In the mildest cases a limitation of the food to moderate bran mashes, and a dose of ½ lb. of sodic sulphate, with salicylate of soda (3–4 drs.) or bismuth will usually suffice.

In severe cases, at the outset, while constipation exists give 3 or 4 drs. of cape aloes, or ½ lb. Glauber salts or ½ pint olive oil, combined with 2 drs. of extract of hyoscyamus or belladonna and 3 drs. salicylate of soda. This serves to deplete from the inflamed vessels and the whole portal system, to soothe suffering, to expel much of the offensive and infective matters from the bowels, and to check fermentation in that which remains. They should be given with, or followed by mucilaginous liquids like solutions of slippery elm or gum arabic, flaxseed tea, or well boiled farinaceous gruels.

Pilocarpin, 3 grs., or eserine, 2 grs., or both have been recommended and may be resorted to when action of the bowels is urgently demanded. They need not supersede the other laxatives. In manifest impaction of the large intestines, salts, aloes, pilocarpin and eserine may form an effective combination.

Copious enemata with mucilaginous liquids or warm soap suds should be given at frequent intervals.

Counter-irritants and derivatives to the abdomen are most important. Hot fomentations may be persisted in for an hour at a time, or a damp compress around the abdomen covered closely by dry blankets and held in place by elastic circingles. Mustard pulp made with cold water rubbed in against the hair and at once covered by paper and a thick blanket is often of great value as drawing blood and nervous action to the skin and relieving the suffering intestine.

In all cases the diet and drink must be carefully supervised. A little thoroughly scalded wheat bran, or farina, and decoctions of flaxseed, farinas, slippery elm or mallow, or a solution of gum arabic will refresh the animal without overloading the digestive organs or favoring further fermentation.

In case of the onset of diarrhœa which threatens to prove excessive and persistent, the giving by mouth and anus of antiseptics and anodynes with mucilaginous agents may be resorted to. Calomel may be given in 10 grain doses twice daily mixed with five times the amount of chalk. Or 2 drs. each of nitrate of bismuth and salicylate of soda and ½ oz. of laudanum may be given three times a day. Or quinine, 2 drs. and nux vomica 10 grs. may be added to the above. A choice may be made of other anodynes, (hyoscyamus, belladonna), antiseptics, (salol, chloral, naphthol, naphthalin, creolin), and bitters, (gentian, calumba, cascarilla).

Antiseptic and even astringent injections must be given, and well boiled farinas and mucilaginous agents may be given by the mouth. Wheat flour boiled for several hours; starch prepared with boiling water as for the laundry, (1 pint); gum arabic, or slippery elm may suffice as examples.

The patient should have a dry comfortable box and warm clothing according to the season of the year. He must be kept for a week on linseed gruel or other equally simple demulcent agent and brought back to his customary food by slow degrees.

CHRONIC CATARRHAL ENTERITIS IN SOLIPEDS.

Causes: As in acute: troubles of circulation, heart, lungs, verminous embolism, parasitism, skin disease. Lesions: thickening of mucosa, pigmentation, rigidity, hypertrophy of villi, follicles and glands, ulceration, polypi. Symptoms: impaired appetite, buccal fœtor, retracted flank, unthrifty skin, pallid mucosæ, colics, tympanies, rumblings, irregular bowels, emaciation, perspiration, fatigue. Treatment: dietetic, tonic, bitters, salines, aromatics, enemata, bismuth, laudanum, calomel and chalk, iron, astringents, counter-irritants, electricity, sunshine.

Causes. This may occur from a continuance of the same causes as in the acute, or from an imperfect recovery from the acute form. It may result from troubles in the circulation, as valvular disease of the heart, or emphysema of the lungs, which forces the blood back on the venous system, including the liver and portal vein. Or the lesions that come from verminous embolism may leave such alteration in the intestinal walls as entail chronic congestion of the mucosa, or intestinal parasites may be the cause. Severe and inveterate skin diseases appear to affect the intestinal mucosa by sympathy, just as diseases of that mucosa usually entail skin diseases.

Lesions. Attenuation of the coats of the small intestine and thickening of the mucosa of the large have been noticed. The mucosa is darkly pigmented and covered with excess of mucus. The thickening of the mucosa may extend into the submucous tissue, giving a firm leathery feeling to the part, and entailing a loss of elasticity. The villi are hypertrophied and the follicles of Lieberkuhn and Peyers’ patches may be congested, ulcerated or otherwise altered. Polypoid growths are not uncommon on the mucosa, and the mesenteric glands are enlarged and pigmented.

Symptoms are by no means very definite. Disturbance of the digestive functions, capricious or impaired appetite, dry fœtid mouth, tucked up abdomen, dry hair and skin, pallor of the visible mucous membranes, slight intermittent colics and tympanies, loud rumblings in the bowels, and relaxed bowels, or alternate costiveness and diarrhœa, with some tenderness on manipulation of the abdomen are the usual symptoms. The animal loses flesh, has dry, unthrifty coat, and sweats and is easily exhausted at work.

Treatment. Dietary care is the first essential. Boiled oats, barley, rye or bran, in small amount and flaxseed tea may indicate the kind. These should be given in small amount often, and at regular intervals.

A failing appetite may be stimulated by nux vomica (10 grains) twice daily, or by gentian or other bitter, along with common salt and aromatics.

Constipation may be combated by fresh green food in small quantities, or by an ounce each of Glauber salt and common salt given every morning before feeding, in a drink of water (half to a bucket, if possible), and 10 to 20 grains of nux vomica may be advantageously added. Soapy injections with salt or glycerine may also be given.

Diarrhœa may be moderated or checked by nitrate of bismuth (2 drachms), with laudanum (1 ounce), repeated as may be demanded. A combination of calomel and chalk (1:12) will often serve a good purpose in drachm doses several times a day. For persistent diarrhœa Cadeac recommends the following: Iron carbonate 4 drachms, lime water 10 ounces, alum 1 drachm, powdered oak bark 1 ounce, given in water and farina.

Sepsis and fermentation must be combated by the same means as in the acute type, and the same counter-irritants may be resorted to. A life in the open air or sunshine, but without undue exertion is of great importance.

ACUTE CATARRHAL ENTERITIS IN CATTLE.

Causes: atony, debility, starvation, overfeeding, innutritious food, close, foul buildings, ill health, over-exertion, hot weather, sudden changes, chills, privation of water, irritants, spoiled and newly harvested grain, foul water, parasitism, chest diseases, thrombosis. Lesions; in small intestine mainly, tympany, congestion, thickened mucosa, epithelial degeneration, desquamation, enlarged villi, follicles and glands, erosions, ulcers, perforations. Symptoms: solid masses in rumen, impaired rumination and appetite, rumbling, tenderness, costiveness, fever, arched back, tender, tucked up abdomen, colics, in severe cases, agalactia, tremors, rigors, drooping head, ears, eyelids, tender abdomen, straining, expulsion of mucus, foul eructations, later diarrhœa, critical or exhausting. Death from tympany, bleeding, infection, inanition. Diagnosis: by concurrence of symptoms, hyperthermia, tender abdomen, no blood nor coccidia in stools, no frothy bloody mucus with tenesmus. Treatment: dietetic, friction, synapism, atropia, chloral hydrate by rectum, salines, demulcents, nux, tartar emetic, eserine, pilocarpin, sulphites, salol, sodium salicylate, naphthol, etc., bitter tonics, carminatives, stimulants, sodium chloride, ipecacuan, hygiene during convalescence.

Causes. As in solipeds the various conditions which lower the general tone, and those which especially debilitate the bowels predispose to catarrhal inflammation. Underfeeding and overfeeding, fibrous, innutritious, indigestible food, an indoor life in close, foul stables, chronic and debilitating diseases, overwork, overdriving, long continued hot weather, sudden changes of weather, chills, long railway journeys without water, exposure in hot stockyards in midsummer, all lessen the resisting power of the system and of the bowels.

As more direct irritants, may be named irritant plants, weedings and culls from gardens, musty and spoiled fodders of all kinds, newly harvested grain, and putrid drinking water. Also intestinal parasitism, diseases of the heart and lungs, and thrombosis of the mesenteric arteries.