GALL STONES IN DOG AND CAT.
These are more or less spherical, dark brownish green, and usually found in the gall bladder or larger bile ducts. They may vary in size from a pea to a hazel nut. Their chemical analysis is wanting.
Symptoms. There may be evidence of biliary obstruction and if this occurs intermittently and is associated with colic, it becomes somewhat characteristic. Constipation, emesis, icterus, and sometimes tenderness of the right hypochondrium would indicate the source of the colic. A pre-existing and concurrent catarrh of the bowels corroborates these indications.
Cadeac explains that the obstructing calculus is called on to resist the impulse of the bile forced upon it by the spasmodic contraction of the bile ducts, which distends the bile duct immediately back of the stone to perhaps ten times its normal size. Then under a suspension of the spasm or even an antiperistaltic contraction of the duct, the calculus is forced back into the dilated portion or even into the gall-bladder, and the attack is relieved. Under repeated irritations of this kind the inflammation of the bile ducts extends into the liver and determines cirrhosis. The irritation further through the sympathetic produces a reflex constriction of the pulmonary capillaries, with the natural results of increasing tension of the pulmonary artery and right heart, and dilatation and degeneration of the walls of the latter even in the best nourished animals. Thus dyspnœa and modified heart sounds (murmurs) may be symptoms of biliary calculi.
Treatment. Three or four ounces of olive oil were found to greatly increase the quantity and fluidity of the bile in from thirty to forty-five minutes. Bile, sulphate of soda and salicylate of soda are excellent cholagogues, and the latter at the same time an antiseptic. Anti-spasmodics are especially indicated to relieve the colics, but they must be used in relatively smaller doses than in the herbivora. Potassic and sodic carbonates or tartrates (Vichy) may be used as enemas if they cannot be administered by the mouth. Fomentations may be resorted to. The food must be laxative and aqueous, and exercise must be imposed as far as the animal can bear it.