LARYNGITIS IN PIG.
Frequency. Causes, wet, cold pens, exposure, withholding liquids. Symptoms, prostration, dullness, cough, fever, swollen throat and neck, dyspnœa, dark mucosa, sloughing of epithelium and epidermis, general petechiæ, fœtid breath, great prostration. Lesions, gangrenous patches on pharynx and fauces, ulcers, infiltrations. Treatment, hygienic, dietetic, emetic, laxative, poultice, bandages, locally, astringent, antiseptic, caustic, tonic.
Sore throat is common in some localities when pigs live in herds.
Causes. Chiefly faulty hygiene. Exposed, cold and wet piggeries, cold blasts for which the pig has an extraordinary aversion, and the deprivation of liquids in warm, dry seasons are frequent causes.
Symptoms. These have been described by M. Pradal, who divides the disease into three stages, evidently dealing with an infectious malady. The first stage is marked by loss of appetite, dullness, slow, listless movements, a tendency to hide under the litter; low, hoarse grunt and cough, the last aggravated by moving the animal; pain in swallowing; red, sunken eye, and constipation. If there is no improvement on the second or third day it merges into the second stage. This is characterized by a still hoarser grunt, painful, hard hacking cough, difficult breathing, especially in the sunshine, and a rapidly increasing swelling of the throat, soon extending to both ears and as far down as the breast bone. This engorgement feels soft and pasty though firm, tender lumps may be felt, indicating the approaching formation of abscess. It is so abundant that suffocation may ensue in the course of forty-eight hours. If the progress of the swelling is not arrested it soon passes into the third or gangrenous stage. The breathing is more hurried; the mouth open, the protruded tongue of a bluish black color, the cough followed by a continuous rattle, the head unsteady, swallowing impossible, and the swelling extends to the side of the face and beneath the chest. The swollen surface is cold and livid; the bristles easily detached; it is bedewed by a serosity which exudes from it, and portions of the dead skin tend to detach themselves. The mouth and throat participate in the gangrene, the breath, saliva and nasal discharge is fetid, and the epidermis peels off. The snout, ears and skin generally assume a bluish black hue, the prostration is extreme, the creature lying constantly on its side; the pain ceases and in one or two days death ensues, preceded by a state of comparative calmness.
On opening the throat after death the mucous membrane is engorged and thickened, bears various hues of black, blue, livid and green, and breaks down into a pulpy mass under slight pressure. The surrounding (pharyngeal) muscles even are implicated in this change. In the earlier stages there is only engorgement with blood of the tonsils and the mucous membrane of the pharynx and larynx; serous infiltration of the surrounding parts, and often the presence of inspissated mucus resembling false membranes or of ulcers on the surface.
Treatment. In the earlier stages, hygienic measures alone may suffice to check. A warm, dry, comfortable piggery, emollient and astringent drinks, such as sheep’s head broth, oatmeal and other gruels acidulated with vinegar or buttermilk, an emetic (six grains of tartar emetic); a dose of physic (four croton beans powdered and given in the food, or from two to three ounces of castor oil), and if the patient will permit it a flannel bandage or piece of sheepskin round the throat. If the symptoms are more threatening it is recommended to bleed from the ears and tail; to apply a linseed meal poultice round the throat to hasten the formation of abscess, or in the absence of such indications to employ a mustard poultice made with spirits of turpentine, or rugs wrung out of boiling water, to the same part. Local astringent and caustic applications to the throat are the most promising, applied by means of a whalebone prob as recommended for other animals, the mouth being held open by a noose round the upper jaw. Sodium sulphite, silver nitrate, potassium permanganate, hydrochloric acid diluted, and tincture of iodine, may be employed.
When the gangrenous stage has been reached all treatment is useless.