Part 56

The disease may last a few days only or it may continue for weeks or months. In the last case intestinal catarrh, ulceration, and circumscribed necrosis are likely to supervene and the animal may die of auto intoxication, acute peritonitis or enteritis. Yet the majority of cases in the dog reach a favorable termination, or recover with remaining cicatrices, strictures or dilatations.

Treatment. In =solipeds= accustomed to an idle or pampered life, plenty of daily exercise will often correct the torpor. A run at pasture will often effectually counteract the tendency. If the patient must be kept in the stable a full drink of cold water every morning before feeding will often succeed. Regularity in feeding and watering is of the utmost importance, and the addition of a little wheat bran or flaxseed to the grain is often of material advantage. Next may be added a moderate allowance of carrots, turnips, or ensilage to furnish the needed succulence and organic acids. If in addition medicinal measures are wanted, a small handful of common salt, or of Glauber salts, in the morning drink to be taken ten or fifteen minutes before the first feed, will usually operate well. This may be continued for a length of time if necessary, without the ill effects of purgatives given at other times. It may be rendered slightly more effectual by the addition of 10 grains nux vomica on each occasion. A morning injection of a quart or two of cold water with one or two ounces of glycerine may be tried. Another resort is 2 or 3 grains of barium chloride in the morning drink or hypodermically repeated daily for some time.

In the more severe cases with already existing impaction of the colon, purgatives and copious injections will be demanded as advised under that disease.

In =dogs= the first object is the unloading of the rectum and colon and this usually demands direct mechanical intervention. (See Intestinal Indigestion with Constipation.) In case of hypertrophied prostate this may be rendered somewhat difficult, yet with a free use of oily, soapy or mucilaginous injections it can usually be accomplished.

The further treatment is on the same line as for the soliped. An abundance of exercise in the open air is a prime essential, together with a free access to fresh water. House dogs must be taken out for urination and defecation at regular times that are not too far apart. The food must be of a laxative nature. At first fresh whey or buttermilk only may be allowed, but as some action of the bowels is obtained well salted beef tea, pulped or scraped red muscle seasoned with salt, or milk treated in the same way is permissible. If the bowels fail to respond when the dog is taken out at the regular times an injection of cold water may be given. Sulphate of eserine (⅕ gr.) may be given daily by the mouth or hypodermically, or castor oil (½ to 1 oz.) may be administered at one dose to be followed by careful dietary and hygienic measures. Or sweet oil, calomel and jalap, podophyllin, or colocynth may be substituted. When the bowels have been freely opened a daily morning dose of a drop of the fluid extract of belladonna and ½ gr. of nux vomica will often materially improve the peristalsis. Active manipulation of the abdomen may be employed, or, if available, a current of electricity through the torpid bowels for 10 or 15 minutes daily.

CONSTIPATION IN BIRDS.

Causes: Matted feathers, impacted cloaca, arrest of eggs, debility, catarrh, parasites, nervous disorder. Symptoms: swelling of anus, pendent abdomen, waddling gait, straining without effect. Treatment: remove obstruction by mechanical means, cut off matted feathers, egg matter may demand laparotomy, castor oil, tincture of rhubarb, enemata, green food, ensilage, roots, onions.

In birds torpid and obstructed bowels may come from the effects of a previous diarrhœa, which has led to the matting together of the feathers over the anus at once obstructing defecation and rendering it painful. It may result in and be aggravated by a slow accumulation of indigestible matters in the intestine or cloaca (pebbles, feathers, etc.), and the arrest of eggs in the oviduct, pressing upon and obstructing the bowel. In a recent case the author removed 18 ozs. of impacted egg matter from the oviduct of a hen, which when divested of this load weighed barely 2 lbs. Debility of the general system and particularly of the walls of the bowels, and its various causes (old age, exhausting disease, intestinal catarrh, parasites, nervous diseases, etc.) retard defecation and favor impaction as in the mammal.

The symptoms may be; hard dry droppings, matting of the feathers over the anus with feculent matters, a firm swelling surrounding the sphincter, a pendent condition of the abdomen which when manipulated is felt to be firm and resistant, ruffling of the feathers, drooping of the head, wings and tail, walking sluggishly with legs half bent and a waddling gait, and ineffectual attempts to defecate.

Treatment. As in dogs remove the obstructing mass by mechanical means. Matted feathers may be clipped off, and feculent accumulations may be dislodged by the aid of the finger, or in small birds of a blunt prob. This may be favored by manipulation through the abdominal walls, and the injection of soapy or oily enemata. Accumulations of impacted egg matter may be similarly removed, or, failing this, by an incision made through the abdominal walls and oviduct. As a purgative give one or two teaspoonfuls castor oil according to the size of the hen, or a few drops to a small cage bird. For the latter Friedberger and Fröhner advise a few drops of tincture of rhubarb in the drinking water. Injections of warm or cold soapsuds or water may be continued as symptoms demand. Green food, ensilage, roots, worms, snails and insects are indicated to correct the tendency to costiveness and may be continued until the bowels have acquired their proper tone. A moderate allowance of onions is often of great value.

HAIR BALLS IN THE INTESTINES—HORSE. EGAGROPILES.

Seat, colon, cæcum; hair of oat seed, clover leaf, vine tendrils, hair of horse, nucleus, calcic admixture, straw, in horses on dry food, with depraved appetite, or with skin disease. Symptoms: none, or torpid bowels, colics, recurring, fermentations, tympany, obstruction, rupture, peritonitis, rectal exploration. Lesions: impacted ball, with excess of liquid and gas in front, rupture, ragged bloody edges. Treatment: extraction, enemata, eserine, barium chloride.

Hair balls, received the name of egagropiles because of their discovery in the alimentary canal of the wild goat, but they are found in various forms in all the domestic animals. In horses they occupy the cæcum and colon and are most frequently composed of the fine vegetable hairs that surround the grain of the oat, or the leaf of clover, of the woody tendrils of vines, and of the hairs of themselves and their fellows taken in at the period of moulting. They sometimes contain a nucleus of leather or other foreign body which has been swallowed but in many cases no such object can be found, the hair having become rolled and felted by the vermicular movements of the stomach and intestines. An admixture of mucus assists materially in the felting, and calcareous and magnesian salts may make up the greater part of the mass, rendering it virtually a calculus. They may further have a large admixture of straw and vegetable fibres of larger size than oat or clover hairs. They are most frequent in horses kept on dry food, (sweepings of oatmeal mills) and at hard work, and which show depraved appetite and lick each other. Omnibus horses suffer more than army horses. Skin diseases, by encouraging licking, contribute to their production.

Symptoms. In the great majority of cases hair balls do not seriously incommode the horse. They do not attain a large size, and being light do not drag injuriously on the intestine and mesentery. They do, however, retard the movement of the ingesta, and when grown to a considerable size they may block the intestine, more particularly the pelvic flexure, the floating colon or rectum. Under such conditions they produce colics which may be slight, transient, and recurrent, or severe and even fatal, having all the characteristics of complete obstruction from other causes. Fermentations, tympanies, and straining without defecation are common features. When the obstruction takes place in the pelvic flexure, the floating colon or rectum, it may often be detected by rectal exploration. When complete obstruction occurs all the violent symptoms of that condition are present, and these may pass into those of rupture (Peuch, Leblanc, Neyraud), and shock or peritonitis. If the animal has passed hair balls even months before, the colics may with considerable confidence be attributed to other balls of the same kind.

Lesions. In case of death there are the usual lesions of gaseous indigestion, with or without enteritis, but with the accumulation of a great quantity of liquid contents, above the ball, which is felt as a firm body impacted in the gut. In other cases the distended bowel has given way and the liquid contents and often the hair ball as well are found free in the abdominal cavity. In such a case the edges of the laceration are covered with blood clots and thickened with inflammatory exudation, and there is more or less peritonitis.

Treatment. Relief may sometimes be obtained by the extraction of a hair ball lodged in the rectum or adjacent part of the floating colon. In other cases abundant soapy or oily enemata, and the employment of eserine or barium chloride subcutem are indicated.

HAIR AND BRISTLE BALLS IN DOG AND PIG.

From licking in skin disease. Symptoms: of obstruction. Treatment: manipulation, enemata, oil, antispasmodics, eserine, barium chloride, laparotomy, diet in convalescence.

The hair balls of dogs come mainly from licking themselves when affected with skin diseases or parasites. In pigs they are mostly attributed to depraved appetite.

The hair balls of the dog are small, open in texture, and easily disintegrated, having little mucus and no earthy salts in their composition.

The bristle balls of pigs take the form of straight or curved rods of firm consistency, but without earthy salts. The projecting ends of the bristles render them particularly irritating.

The symptoms are those of obstruction of the bowels, and the treatment consists in efforts to dislodge them. If situated near the anus they may sometimes be reached with the finger, or copious oily injections may facilitate their passage. Manipulations through the abdominal walls may be helpful in the dog. Oleaginous laxatives and antispasmodics may be tried, or these failing, eserine or barium chloride. As a last resort laparotomy may be performed, the ball abstracted and the intestine and abdominal wall carefully sutured (Siedamgrotzky). In such a case the diet should be restricted for a week to beef soups, buttermilk, and well boiled gruels, especially flaxseed.

INTESTINAL CALCULI. ENTEROLITHS. BEZOARS.

Earthy basis, nucleus, stratification, in cæcum or colon, multiple, size, number up to 1000. Composition, phosphates of lime, magnesia, and ammonia, silica, mucus, epithelium, organic matter. Ammonio-magnesian tend to crystalline form, common phosphate of lime to smooth forms. Concretions. Source in food. Ammonia from bacteridian fermentation, action of colloids, varied nuclei, rapid growth. Lesions: catarrh, dilation, obstruction, rupture, peritonitis. Symptoms: intermittent colics with obstruction, tympany, bowel distension, liquid and gaseous, before obstruction. Diagnosis: by hand in rectum, hard obstruction with distension in front. Treatment: purgative dangerous, but exceptionally successful, extraction, oleaginous enemata, laparotomy.

=Horse.= Intestinal calculi have an earthy basis (ammonio-magnesian phosphate, or oxalate of lime, and more or less silica) glued together by mucus and having a central nucleus usually of some foreign body, (a particle of sand, pebble, morsel of hair, lead, cloth, nail, coin, blood clot, or inspissated mucus) around which the earthy salts have been deposited layer after layer. They are usually formed in the cæcum or double colon and may be multiple and moulded upon each other, so that they become discoid, angular or otherwise altered from the globular shape. The worn, flattened surface in such cases shows concentric rings representing the layers as deposited in succession.

The size of the masses may be from a pea or smaller, up to calculi of six inches in diameter.

In number there may be a single calculus or there may be an indefinite quantity. Zundel counted 400 in a single colon, and Gurlt 1,000.

Composition. They are usually composed of phosphate of lime and of magnesia, of ammonio-magnesian phosphate, with a little silica, mucus, epithelium, and organic matters from the ingesta. Traces of sodium chloride, and iron oxide may also be present.