Causes: faulty feeding, close confinement, youth, distemper, over-exertion, meat diet, chills when heated and fatigued, ferments, bacteria, debility, ill health. Lesions: congested, softened, ulcerated, thickened mucosa, mucopurulent exudate, swollen intestinal and mesenteric glands, hyperplasia, polypi, follicular degeneration. Symptoms: dullness, segregation, inappetence, fever, arched back, abdominal rumbling, tenderness, retraction, constipation, diarrhœa, colics, vomiting, tenesmus, swollen red excoriated anus, icterus, weakness, debility, paralysis, if chronic, unthrifty skin, with eruptions, pallor, foul breath, tongue and gums, emaciation. Course: may recover in vigorous, or run down and die in old, young, weak, debilitated or ill. Relapses. Treatment: dietetic, laxative, in icteric, calomel, manna, enemata, warm bath, synapism, antiseptics, bismuth, sodium salicylate, in diarrhœa, bitters, astringent antiseptic tonics. Demulcents.
Causes. The dog is susceptible because of its varied, irregular, stimulating, often excessive diet, and its close confinement and lack of wholesome outdoor exercise. The conditions which predispose to or excite gastritis tend equally to enteritis. Youth, canine distemper, over-exertion, an exclusive meat diet, and chills from plunging into cold water when exhausted with hunting are to be specially noted. Spoiled meats charged with the germs of infection, or with putrefactive bacteria and their toxic products are common causes. Then any old standing disease or other cause of general debility will predispose to the attacks of such otherwise harmless germs. The irritation caused by intestinal parasites is an occasional factor.
Lesions. The mucosa is congested, ramified, spotted or dark and slaty; it together with the submucosa is swollen and infiltrated, and with points of ecchymosis, extravasation or even ulceration. The surface has a thick layer of mucopurulent matter. The solitary glands are swollen and charged with small lymphoid or pus cells and have a congested areola. The mesenteric glands are congested and the liver usually congested softened or mottled. In chronic cases there may be hyperplasia, polypi, cystoid degeneration of the follicles, etc.
Symptoms. There may be dullness, drowsiness, a seeking of seclusion, inappetence, hyperthermia (102 to 104°), ardent thirst, arched back, abdominal rumbling, tympany or tucked up tender abdomen, and a very temporary constipation, early giving place to diarrhœa. If however the inflammation is confined to the rectum and floating colon, constipation may persist. There are intermittent colics, frequent lying down and rising, or rising on the hind limbs only and when the belly is handled the patient may whine. The mouth is sour, hot, clammy, and red, and the dorsum of the tongue furred. The nose is dry and burning, the eyes congested, sunken and watery.
The fæces may be early soft or liquid and bilious, then as the defecations increase they pass through shades of gray to black or reddish black from the admixture of effused blood, and show bubbles and fœtor. Vomiting is usually an early symptom (septic matters in septic poisoning) and as the disease advances there is much fruitless straining and even protrusion of the congested and excoriated rectum. Icterus is common from infection of the gall ducts or the absorption of toxins into the portal vein. Weakness and debility amounting even to paresis may appear in the end.
In chronic cases there are emaciation and debility, unthrifty hair and skin, cutaneous eruptions, pallor of the mucosæ, fœtid breath, foul teeth and tongue, with irregular appetite, alternate constipation and diarrhœa, and, in case of implication of the duodenum and liver, icterus. The abdomen is retracted and tender.
Course. In strong vigorous dogs a spontaneous recovery is the rule, which is greatly favored by elimination through vomiting and purging. Fatal cases occur in puppies, in old, debilitated animals, or in such as have disease of the heart, lungs, or liver. Relapses are common and dangerous.
Treatment. Mild cases may respond to a purely dietetic treatment. Boiled milk, hot soup, or well cooked mush, and biscuit, are indicated, and with ½ oz. castor oil and 5 to 10 drops laudanum may suffice for treatment.
In the more severe cases, with some icterus, calomel 1 to 2 grs. with the oil, or with manna 5 drs. may be followed by emollient or soapy injections, and a warm bath or fomentations, the body being afterward carefully dried and warmly covered. This may be followed by a mustard poultice.
The usual antiseptics (salol 10 grs., naphthol 20 grs., creoline 20 drops, creosote 7 drops, or naphthaline 20 grs.) may be given with the laxative and should be given by both mouth and anus several times daily, in combination with nitrate of bismuth. In case of icterus give a mixture of calomel 5 grs., chalk 60 grs., in doses of three to five grains three or four times a day. Or salicylate of soda (10 grs.) may be given at the same intervals.
Quinia sulphate 5 grs., nux vomica 1 gr., tannic acid 1 gr., or silver nitrate ½ to 1 gr., or iron chloride 3 to 5 grs., may be employed when the bowels are much relaxed. Injections of well boiled rice or starch, or of gum or slippery elm, may be employed as adjuvants.
Definition. Causes: Spring, toxins, irritants, inflammation. Symptoms: Vomiting, diarrhœa, pendent head, arched back, retracted belly, black, bloody glairy frothing fæces, circulation excited, mucosæ red, yellow, or brown, death in two or three days. Diagnosis. Lesions: Stomach and intestines empty, mucosa of a dark blood red, thickened, liver and kidneys congested. Treatment: Little successful, intestinal disinfection, elimination, laxatives, wet compresses, enemata, heart stimulants, ergot, iron chloride.
Definition. A special form of septic enteritis, occurring as an epizootic and not transmissible by ingestion.
Causes. These are not well known. Occurring in a few dogs at one time in the same place, and time (by preference in spring) and then disappearing for months, and not being appreciably communicable by contagion or ingestion, it has the aspect of being caused by poisons, probably of the nature of toxins taken in with the food or water. Preëxisting inflammation has been alleged as a predisposing cause, the attack having followed superpurgation, or the administration of a handful of salt. Guinard found that the intravenous injection of tuberculin, mallein and other products of microbian growth produced lesions analogous to those of this disease.
Symptoms. The attack is usually sudden. The dog is seized with vomiting and diarrhœa and stands with head depressed, back arched and belly tucked up. The vomit is at first of alimentary matters, then of glairy mucus, or black and bloodstained material. The fæces are black, bloody, glairy, frothy, and abundant, fouling the tail and the hips. The abdomen is at first tense and extremely tender. The pulse is accelerated, the heart beats tumultuous, the breathing slow and temperature elevated. Redness of the visible mucosæ, often tinged more or less deeply with yellow, implies hepatic disorder or destruction of blood globules. Death may occur in two or three days.
The abruptness and violence of the attack, the violent vomiting and purging and the staining of the discharges with blood are to a large extent diagnostic.
Lesions. These are most noticeable in the stomach and intestines which are empty and of a dark blood red. The mucosa is thickened, gorged with blood, and showing deeper shades here and there where extravasation has occurred. The liver and kidneys are also deeply congested.
Treatment has been almost constantly a failure. Cadeac recommends disinfection of the intestinal canal, with salol, cresyl or dinaphthol, but in the absence of contagious germs this seems the less called for. The indications would seem to point to elimination of the chemical poisons, the soothing of the irritation and the tiding the animal over the period of weakness. Agents that will at once eliminate the poisons and sustain the heart’s action appear to be called for, hence digitalis 2 grs. or tincture of strophanthus 10 drops are particularly indicated. Laxatives are rather hopeless considering the congestion and paralysis of the bowels, and yet if they can be made to operate on any comparatively healthy part of the intestine they will serve a good purpose in eliminating the poisonous contents, in securing secretion and elimination of poison from the blood, and in depleting from the overcharged portal system. Glauber salts by mouth and anus, or jalap, or castor oil may be resorted to. In the absence of these a free use of watery enemata and the ingestion of water by the mouth may be resorted to. A damp compress around abdomen and loins will be at once soothing and stimulating to the secretions of both kidneys and bowels.
To counteract congestion and extravasation Cadeac advocates ergotine 2 grs. subcutem, or iron perchloride, 2 ozs., to 1 quart of water to be given in doses of two or three tablespoonfuls every two hours. It might also be used in enema.