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.
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.
Lesions. These predominate in the small intestine in catarrhal enteritis as they do in the large intestine in dysentery. The small intestine and cæcum may be distended by gas, and reddened more or less deeply on their outer surface. The mucosa is the seat of congestion, punctiform and ramified redness, thickening, infiltration and softening so that the epithelium breaks down into a pulp under the pressure of the finger. Desquamation may be extensive leaving a raw angry surface. The villi are infiltrated, erect, and ulcerated showing dark bloody points, and ecchymoses, and circumscribed sloughs and eschars are present. The solitary glands are congested, hypertrophied and projecting. The submucosa is infiltrated with a gelatinoid material and the same may be found around the swollen and congested mesenteric glands. Perforations have been met with in some cases, and coexistent inflammatory lesions in the stomachs are common.
Symptoms. In the mildest forms there is inactivity of the rumen, aggregation of the contents into hard masses, easily felt through the surrounding gases, appetite and rumination are greatly impaired, and there is much rumbling and considerable tenderness of the right side of the abdomen, and more or less costiveness, with hard, glazed mucus-covered fæces. There is some rise of temperature, ardent thirst, injected mucous membranes, dry, hot muzzle, weeping eyes, a small, hard, weak pulse, arched back, tender to pinching, and tucked up abdomen. There may be slight colicy pains, uneasy movements of the hind feet and tail, and sometimes lying down and rising at short intervals.
In more severe cases the impaction and tympany of the rumen are more marked, the hyperthermia runs high, appetite and rumination cease, the milk dries up, rigors and tremors appear, the head and ears droop, the eyes are sunken, the mouth is clammy and fœtid, the colicy pains are severe or extreme, the right side of the abdomen is very tender, defecation may be altogether suspended and rumbling in the right side of the abdomen ceases or becomes rare. Straining may continue but seldom is anything but mucus passed. Eructations from the rumen are distinctly fœtid.
After the third day the violence of the pains may abate, and sometimes diarrhœa sets in and may be regarded as critical, and portending recovery. If rumbling in the right side is resumed, if the fever subsides, the spirits revive, and some appetite and rumination return they will herald improvement.
If on the other hand the pulse becomes smaller, the temperature higher, the eyes sunken and fixed, the urine scanty, red and acid, the animal constantly recumbent on its left side, if when raised it omits the healthy stretching of its hind limbs, and walks sluggishly and painfully with frequent moaning, if when down it rests its head on the ground, the prospects are very unfavorable.
Death may occur early from tympany and asphyxia; it may follow profuse intestinal hæmorrhage; or it may be the result of general infection and inanition.
Diagnosis must depend on the combination and succession of the above-named symptoms. From acute intestinal congestion it is distinguished by the more moderate type of the colic, and the more gradual advance of the disease. From acute indigestion and tympany of the rumen by the early and marked tenderness of the right side of the abdomen, and the decided hyperthermia. From hemorrhagic enteritis by the absence of the black sanguineous discharges from the bowels at an early stage of the malady, and of coccidia from the droppings. From dysentery it is distinguished by the absence of the mucous and bloody discharges, which are passed with much straining in that affection from the beginning.
Treatment. The first consideration is dietetic and hygienic. If the animal will still eat, he ought to have boiled flax seed or other well boiled gruel, rendered palatable by salt. Even if he refuses food, this may be diluted largely and will be taken on account of the thirst. If he refuses all, a bottle may be given at intervals to refresh him. Or better—milk may be given from a bottle in the same way. Active friction to the abdomen with straw, or the application of oil of turpentine or mustard may abstract blood to the skin and favor the restoration of the intestinal functions. To calm the pains and control spasms, sulphate of atropia (½ gr.) may be given subcutem and repeated if there is no action on the pupil in fifteen minutes. Or extract of belladonna (2 drs.), or chloral hydrate (½ oz.) may be given by rectal injection.
To overcome the intestinal torpor 1 lb. each Glauber and common salt may be given in four to six quarts of warm water and followed by frequent mucilaginous drinks, as much as the animal will take, but only two or three quarts at a time. The addition of ½ dr. nux vomica will serve to rouse peristaltic action. Harm advises 1½ dr. tartar emetic by rectal injection for the same end. Next to Glauber salts, Castor oil (1 qt.) is to be recommended. Along with these or independently of them sulphate of eserin (1½ gr.) or pilocarpin (2 gr.) may be employed subcutem.
Frequent rectal injections of soap or mucilaginous liquids, with or without laxatives will be useful.
As antiferments beside the salt may be used bisulphite of soda in ½ oz. doses, salol 3½ drs., salicylate of soda 3 drs., betol 3½ drs., or naphthol 3½ drs., by the mouth and rectum.
When free movement of the bowels has been secured, attempts should be made to restore appetite and rumination by tonics and stimulants: gentian ½ oz., nux vomica ¼ dr., ipecacuan 2 drs., common salt 1 oz., may be given three times a day.
The diet should at first be restricted to flax seed gruel or that of other farinas, with a mere handful of fresh grass or bran mash and the restoration of the previous diet should be slow and gradual, care being taken meanwhile that no costiveness of the bowels supervenes.
Causes: As in acute chest diseases, abdominal tuberculosis. Lesions: Thinning, discoloration, degeneration of mucosa, fœtid, mucous contents, black baked masses, lymph glands pigmented. Symptoms: Impaired appetite, irregular bowels, tympanies, lies with nose on right flank, unthrifty coat, prostration, emaciation, weakness, tender flank. Treatment: Dietetic, laxative, stimulant of peristalsis, bitters, antiseptics, aromatics, muriatic acid, treat concurrent disease.
Causes. This may result from a continuance of the causes that are operative in the acute, or from the latter merging into the chronic form. Chronic diseases of the heart and lungs, local disturbances of the circulation, and tumors or tubercles of the intestines or mesentery are additional causes.
Lesions. These embrace attenuation of the intestinal walls at Peyers’ patches, a dark, slaty discoloration of the mucosa, more or less congestion, an accumulation of fœtid mucus in the small intestines, of mucus and black baked fæcal matters in the large, and discoloration of the mesenteric glands. Inter-dependent diseases of the heart, lungs and liver are not uncommon.
Symptoms. Following the acute form there remain impaired or capricious appetite and rumination, costiveness alternates with relaxation of the bowels, intermittent slight tympanies occur, the subject inclines to lie much with his nose in his flank, has dull coat, erect on back and neck, sunken eyes, drooping ears, and rapidly loses flesh and strength. Tenderness of the right side of the abdomen when the fist or knee is pressed into it is a marked feature.
Treatment. The diet must be cared for as in the acute form, yet fresh green grass, a little at a time, is calculated to stimulate appetite and rumination and to prove laxative to the bowels. The same purgatives may be given in one-fourth the doses and repeated daily or reduced as may be found best to secure a moderate secretion and discharge from the bowels; eserine or pilocarpin may be used for the same purpose; the bitters and antiseptics may be given in the same way. As calmative aromatics, oil of peppermint 30 drops, powdered anise ½ ounce, or ginger ½ ounce, may be given twice or thrice daily.
Cadeac strongly recommends a drink slightly acidulated with hydrochloric acid to assist the digestion and stimulate the stomach to action.
Attention must of course be given to any curable concurrent or inter-dependent disease.
Definition. Attacks ox mainly. Causes: accessory causes, chills, rain storms, night dews, hoar frost, foul or iced water, alimentary irritants, spoiled fodder, over exertion, hot damp weather, odors of carrion, crowding, swamps, foul stables, germs or pathogenic ferment, in man catarrhal, diphtheritic and amœbic, amœba dysenterica, other microbes, effect of better hygiene. Symptoms: attack sudden, languor, trembling, weakness, weeping eyes, fever, buccal epithelial softening, erosions, tenesmus, fœtid, liquid stools, involuntary defecation, hemorrhoidal congestion, open anus, colics, tender right flank, splashing on handling, anorexia, salivation, unthrifty skin, hide-bound, cracked muzzle, later prostration, low temperature, sunken glazed eyes, drooping head, ears, eyelids, weakness, emaciation, alkaline, fœtid, frothy, bloody, mucous stools, with sloughs, saliva acid, gastric liquids alkaline, bile suppressed. Duration: three days to three weeks or chronic. Mortality 50 to 80 per cent. Complications: mostly septic, abscess, gangrene of other organs, lungs, joints, glands, etc. Lesions: rapid sepsis, blood deep red, coagulum loose, venous congestion, large intestines congested, tumefied, softened, desquamated, eroded, sloughing, necrotic, folds perforated, cicatrizing, contents mucopurulent, bloody, putrid, microbes, glandular lesions, implication of small intestines, stomach mouth, liver, spleen, hepatic abscess. Diagnosis: from rinderpest by tardiness and comparative weakness of contagion, absence of general mucous congestion and epithelial concretions, from toxic enteritis by same. Prevention: avoidance of causes, separation of sick, disinfection, careful feeding. Treatment: Demulcents, antiseptics, astringent tonics, opiates, ipecacuan, calomel, sodium sulphate with antiseptics, antiseptic enemata of glycerine, phenol, creolin, iron sulphate, silver nitrate, salicylic and boric acids, rest, gravitation, careful dieting.
Definition. An infective, ulcerative inflammation of the large intestine but especially of the colic and rectal mucosæ.
It is well recognized as a disease of the ox, and the older writers allege its existence also in horses, swine and dogs, though this is not admitted in all modern veterinary works.
Causes. It was formerly ascribed to improper hygiene, chills, cold rain storms, night dews, hoar frost, malarious emanations, putrid, stagnant or iced water, irritants in food, green, fermented or musty food, a too liberal diet after starvation, overtaxation in very hot weather, and bad odors from decomposing carcasses. These can only be accepted as predisposing causes begetting a general debility, or debility of the alimentary canal and laying that open to the attacks of specific microbes. The close aggregation of cattle on ship-board, in besieged cities, and in the parks of armies in the field, has apparently contributed to the propagation of the dysentery. The removal of a victim to a herd with free healthy range seldom starts a new center of the disease. In all infected herds huddled in small compass there is every facility for the propagation of a germ already present, and especially in the commissariat of a belligerent army there are enough privations, over-exertions and other trying conditions to favor predisposition. Faulty food like stale bread, musty hay, have been supposed to cause it. For man and beast alike dysentery is preëminently a disease of the tropics, and of hot seasons, and will often subside on the advent of cold weather.
Its propagation on given (swampy) soils, and in particular (foul) stables strongly suggests a special germ, though for the cow this has not been perfectly identified. Gerlach vainly attempted to inoculate it, and it does not often propagate itself beyond the foul and infected localities or stables, yet its persistence in them for years bespeaks unequivocally the operation of a special pathogenic ferment.
It may also be fairly assumed that it is not necessary that the same factor should be present in all cases alike, but that one operates predominantly in one case and another in another. In other words dysentery must be recognized as not one disease, but several, of which the true pathogenic microbes have not yet been fully demonstrated, but which are classed together because of the similarity of the attendant lesions.
In man three distinct forms are recognized. 1. Catarrhal dysentery, with frequent small stools of rosy mucus, and blood; and later pus, scybala, passed with tenesmus, but no sloughs and little odor; 2. Diphtheritic dysentery, with thin watery bloody discharges having a pronounced cadaveric odor; also tenesmus, sloughs, and increasingly offensive smell; 3. Amœbic dysentery with frequent bloody mucus stools, tenesmus sloughs and fœtor, but with distinct remissions or intermissions. With the latter, amœbæ are found abundantly and more so in the more acute cases with alkaline stools. They are found in the fresh warm stools, 5 to 8 times the size of a red blood globule and oval, pyriform or irregular in form, with nucleus and nucleolus. Kartulis and Hlava succeeded in inducing dysentery in cats and dogs by injecting pure culture of the amœba, and the former testifies that dogs in Egypt take the disease spontaneously, and their stools contain the same amœba coli as is found in man.
Cunningham who investigated the subject in India found amœba in the bowels of healthy men, and also abundantly in the fæces of horses and cows, which have naturally the requisite alkaline reaction.
The mere presence of the amœba therefore may not be sufficient to cause the disease, but with the requisite predisposition and an alkaline condition of the intestinal contents, it is manifestly an important factor in the disease.
The causative microbes in other forms of dysentery have not been identified, but under the requisite irritation and local debility one can easily conceive of the ordinary bacterial ferments of the intestine, concurring with others introduced from without, in determining the morbid condition. With better hygiene the disease is steadily diminishing in man and beast, though violent epizootics (in cattle) still appear in connection with wars (siege of Belfort, 1870, Zundel), and carriage by sea in hot climates (Mediterranean trade, Bouley).
Symptoms. The disease sets in suddenly, yet prodromata may occasionally be observed, such as dullness, langor, trembling over the flanks and elbows, weakness, prominent, weeping, congested eyes, and low moans when moved. Then follow hyperthermia, at first slight, heat of the mouth without injection, epithelial concretions or erosions and diarrhœa (sometimes there is straining without passage at first). Then follows a period of profuse and fœtid discharge, with relaxed or open anus, the liquids escaping involuntarily and smearing the tail, perineum, thighs and hocks, and the protruded mucosa showing dark red congestions and even commencing erosions. Colicy pains, slight at first, have now become intense, and the right side of the abdomen is very tender to the touch and fluctuates noisily when manipulated. Appetite and rumination are lost. Salivation may be present, the saliva falling in films to the ground. The buccal epithelium is softened, loosened and easily detached by the finger, leaving raw sores. The temperature which has risen slowly (not as in rinderpest abruptly) may reach 106°. The hair becomes dry, the skin harsh, rigid, and firmly adherent to the deeper parts, and often cold, while the muzzle is hot, dry and even cracked.
At a still more advanced stage, the pulse is small, the temperature lowered, the animal very weak and unsteady and inclined to lie, great emaciation, sunken glazed eye, drooping head, ears and eyelids, and a general fœtor from the skin as well as the dejections, which attracts crowds of flies. By this time there may be passed only bloody mucus mixed with eschars, and having a most repulsive odor.
It is a noticeable fact that the fæces are alkaline, and in man the saliva is acid and destitute of its glycogenic properties, the stomach secretions are alkaline and no longer peptogenic, and the secretion of bile is arrested until improvement sets in.
Course. Duration. Some mild cases recover in two or three days, and in violent cases death may occur at this early date. More commonly the disease continues for two or three weeks before ending in death or recovery. Some merge into the chronic form and may last for months and die in a condition of marasmus. These last cases become mere walking skeletons, with pallid mucosæ, sunken eyes, scurfy hide-bound skins covered with vermin, and the frequently everted rectum is congested and covered with ulcers and eschars. Mortality is from 50 to 80 per cent.
Complications. Most complications are in the direct line of septic infection. Among the most common are hepatic abscess, gangrenous pneumonia, and extensive gangrene of the intestinal walls. In man arthritis, paralysis, parotitis and other secondary affections are seen. In the animal as well we may expect necrotic centres in any organ, from the supervention of a general septicæmia.
Lesions. The carcasses putrefy with extraordinary rapidity being as a rule pervaded by septic microbes and their toxins. The blood is of a deep red, loosely and imperfectly coagulated, and accumulated in the veins and subcutaneous connective tissue.
The large intestines are the special seat of the disease, the walls being found hyperæmic, with concentration especially on the mucous surface which is red, congested, infiltrated, tumefied so that it is easily detached under pressure by the finger, or broken down into a putrid pulp. At other points the epithelium or the whole mucosa has been detached leaving ulcers, varying from mere erosions to the deep and even perforating sores, through which the putrid contents escape into the abdominal cavity. At other points the surface is covered by necrotic masses surrounded by a swollen margin of living mucosa. Elsewhere the eschars have been detached and the granulating base and margin have contracted into more or less perfect cicatrices. The contents of the affected bowel may be largely mucopurulent, or it may be mixed with blood, with eschars and putrilage from the sores and at times with small packed masses of food, but in all cases it is very putrid and repulsive. It always contains the elements of blood and exudation, together with many microbes, the predominance of individual species suggesting the main factors in the pathogenesis. Peyers’ patches and the solitary glands are often the seat of infiltration and ulceration. Virchow points out that in man the lesions are largely concentrated in the flexures of the colon in which the ingesta is longer delayed, and the very convoluted arrangement of the viscus in cattle may be one reason of their special predisposition to the disease.
The small intestines are exceptionally implicated, and the abomasum red, congested, ecchymosed and even ulcerated. The mouth and pharynx are often congested, with erosions and ulcerations on the gums and tongue.
The mesenteric glands are red and swollen or pigmented of a dark gray color, and these or the adjacent connective tissue may be the seat of abscess. The liver is enlarged congested, of a yellowish red color, with granular degeneration and softening. Hepatic abscess is rare in cattle. The spleen is engorged with black blood and distinctly enlarged.
Diagnosis. Dysentery is distinguished from rinderpest by the slower advance of the hyperthermia, by the absence of buccal concretions of epithelium, and of vaginal congestion, and above all by the absence of the virulent contagion by which the rinderpest spreads widely and rapidly, irrespective of special unwholesome environment. The lesions of dysentery are concentrated on the large intestines, while in rinderpest they are extended over the whole alimentary canal, and do not spare other mucosæ.
From toxic gastro-enteritis it is distinguished by the absence of any history or lesions showing the ingestion of a poison and by the concentration of the lesions on the large intestines whereas in poisoning with irritants, the stomach and small intestines are the most liable to suffer.
Prevention. Precautions against overcrowding on board ship in hot seasons, and the maintenance of cleanliness are prime considerations. In commissariat herds close crowding must be avoided, feeding should be done at different points for six or eight cattle at each, the yards should be frequently changed, or carefully cleared of manure and sprinkled with a solution of 3 per cent. sulphuric acid. In case an animal is attacked it should at once be removed and killed, and its offal and the yard where it has been, disinfected. Food and drinking water should be specially wholesome.
Treatment. Mild cases may be successfully treated by the use of mucilaginous draughts, (boiled flaxseed, mallow, slippery elm, gum arabic) with antiseptics (salicylic acid or salicylate of soda 2 to 3 drs., salol 1 dr., creosote 1 dr., sulphate or chloride of iron 1 dr.) every three hours.
In the more severe cases the most varied treatment has been resorted to. Formerly opiates and astringents were largely employed, practically shutting up the poison in the intestine. Ipecacuan in large and frequently repeated doses had the advantage of soliciting the action of both liver and bowels, but however useful, it has gradually declined in public confidence.
An eliminating and antiseptic treatment has at present the most general acceptance. Seven grains of calomel has been given every two hours for two or three days in succession. Still more recently 2 to 4 ozs. sulphate of soda every three hours with hot water and antiseptics (salicylates, sulphites, salol, boric acid, creolin, naphthol) have been substituted. Even more important is the washing out of the large intestine by antiseptic enemata. These should be very copious and frequently repeated so as not only to render the contents of the rectum and colon antiseptic but to secure the discharge of the offensive matters as they are produced. The agents may be glycerine, carbolic acid, creolin, sulphate of iron, nitrate of silver, salicylic or boric acid. If the animal can be made to stand on an inclined plane with its hind parts elevated it will favor the penetration and retention of the liquid. Perfect rest is a most important accessory.
In case of recovery the return to ordinary diet should be gradual.
Causes: Symptoms: Moping apart, inappetence, tympany, hard masses in rumen, constipation, colics, straining, stretching, fever, no rumbling nor defecation, diarrhœa, critical, or exhaustive. Treatment: Laxative, antiseptic, counter-irritant, demulcent antiseptic injections, in diarrhœa antiseptics, carminatives, bitters, diet, well boiled farinas.
Causes. These are unknown apart from those given for the ox.
Symptoms. Moping alone in place of following the flock, inappetence, suspended rumination, tympany, hard masses in the rumen, cold ears, horns and limbs, obstinate constipation, weary movements of the hind limbs, lying down and rising, looking at the flanks, and tenderness of the right side of the abdomen, frequent straining, stretching, hyperthermia, rapid pulse, and suppression of movement and rumbling in the bowels are prominent symptoms. The constipation may be followed by diarrhœa, which may presage recovery or hasten death, the symptoms of improvement or aggravation indicating which. The diarrhœa may be simply serous or mucopurulent and inoffensive or it may be black, bloodstained and fœtid. It may cause extensive losses, with pathological changes as in the ox.
Treatment in the early stages with inactive bowels, must be laxative and antiseptic, sodic sulphate 4 ounces with 1 drachm chloral hydrate in a quart of warm water will serve to largely expel offensive ingesta and bacterial ferments and pave the way for recovery. A counter-irritant of aqua ammonia to the abdomen, under the wool, will have a good effect, and soapy or mucilaginous and antiseptic injections are desirable.
If the bowels are already acting freely, ½ drachm each of boracic acid and nitrate of bismuth may be given at least thrice daily, with the addition of 60 drops of laudanum, and antiseptics (salol, naphthol, naphthaline). Carminatives like chamomile, anise, cardamons, peppermint may be added, and bitters such as quinia or nux vomica.
Well boiled gruels of barley, oats, linseed, or rye should be given and little or no solid food until appetite and digestion have been restored.
Causes: decomposing swill, ferments from snout and feet in swill, toxins, salt, brine, powdered soaps, etc. Symptoms: dullness, inappetence, fever, burrowing under litter, stiffness, drooping head, ears and tail, arched back, tender abdomen, constipation, diarrhœa, petechiæ, rumbling, tympany, weakness, emaciation, paraplegia, not actively infectious. Duration: one to eight days or more. Lesions: mucopurulent exudation in alimentary canal, congestion, extravasation, hemorrhages, ulcerations, congestion of peritoneum, mesenteric glands and other organs. Diagnosis: presence of alimentary causes, many attacked at once, no spread to better kept herds, no germ fatal to guinea-pigs nor rabbits. Treatment: eliminate, oil, calomel, flaxseed, gruels, enemata, antiseptics, revulsives, diet during convalescence, antidotes.
Causes. The enteritis of swine has been long considered as infective or septic, yet this is perhaps mainly due to the nature of the food too often furnished to this animal in a state of domestication. Not only is he fed on swill containing all kinds of over-kept food, in a state of more or less advanced decomposition, but he is kept in a pen or yard which soon becomes offensive, and following his natural instincts he roots around with his nose in the accumulating filth. When fed he plunges this foul snout in his liquid food, and as if this were not enough the fore feet follow, and if the trough is long enough the hind feet as well. Every available saprophytic microbe therefore finds its way down his throat, and the toxins from their growth outside the body accompany them to irritate or benumb the mucosa and fit it for the attacks of bacteria, which would otherwise have proved harmless. But in addition to all this, chemical irritants get into the swill and pave the way for the microbes. Salt, brine, and the various caustic washing powders used in washing dishes and tables find their way into the swill barrel often in quantity sufficient to irritate and poison. In experiments conducted at the N. Y. State Veterinary College the washing powders have been proved to be most deadly, and upon different farms, a mortality attributed to hog cholera, has again and again been arrested by preventing the entry of these powders into the swill barrel.
Symptoms. There is dullness, inappetence, hyperthermia (105°), a tendency to lie under the litter, leaving the herd, when raised the pig arches his back, moves stiffly with grunting, the tail and ears pendent, and the belly tender to the touch. The bowels are at first constipated, and thirst ardent, later diarrhœa may set in, and the skin and snout may have red blotches or patches as in hog cholera. Tympanies and abdominal rumblings are frequent. The animal becomes very dull, weak, emaciated, staggers in walking or is completely paraplegic.
It may end fatally in twenty-four or forty-eight hours, or death may be deferred for six or eight days or the disease may merge into the chronic form, or recover. The usual foul surroundings of the pig and the abundance of microbes and toxins taken in, serve to make enteritis in this animal much more redoubtable than in other domestic animals.
The lesions are usually common to stomach and intestine, and consist in abundant mucopurulent discharge, extensive congestion, points and extensive patches of blood extravasation, and of lymph infiltration, ulcers, congested peritoneum and mesenteric glands, and congestions and ecchymosis in distant organs.
The diagnosis between this affection and hog cholera on the one hand and swine plague on the other is not always easy, but it occurs in herds where no introduction of infection can be shown, there is always the evidence of a foul or unwholesome food, drink or environment, and the history of a number having been attacked at once and not one by one at varying intervals, as in infection, the disease does not spread to neighboring herds kept in better conditions, and there is an absence of the specific germ of hog cholera, motile, ærobic, non-liquefying, asporogenous, gas producing with glucose and fatal to guinea-pigs; or of that of swine plague, non-motile, ærobic, non-liquefying, asporogenous, not gas producing and not fatal to guinea-pigs, but fatal to rabbits.
Treatment. If the bowels are costive give castor oil 2 ounces, with great care to avoid choking, or shake 15 to 30 grains of calomel on the tongue and give flaxseed tea, or solution of slippery elm or gum which the animal will usually drink to slake its thirst. Or well boiled gruels may be substituted. Injections of soapsuds or Glauber salts with salicylate of soda should be added until the bowels respond, after which the salicylate alone may be given by both mouth and anus, or it may be replaced by one of the other non-poisonous antiseptics. Oil of turpentine alone or with ammonia may be applied on the abdomen and covered up until the skin is red and angry.
When appetite returns, gruels, linseed tea, boiled milk and other easily digested food may be given for some days until the stomach reacquires tone, when the patient may be slowly returned to its accustomed diet.
If the disease can be traced to alkaline washing powders, these should be first neutralized by vinegar, after which laudanum, antiseptics and mucilaginous gruels will be in order.