GENERAL CATARRHAL STOMATITIS IN CATTLE.
Dense resistant mucosa protective: Affection usually circumscribed. Action of violent irritants, and toxins of specific fevers. Mechanical irritants. Symptoms: Salivation; congestion; eruptions; erosions; ergot; acrid vegetables; caustics. Treatment: Astringents; antiseptics; refrigerants; derivatives; tonics. Removal of foreign bodies. Lesions and symptoms in sheep.
The mouth of the ox as Cadeae well says has a cuticular epithelium too thick and resistant to be easily attacked by microbes. It follows that infected inflammations are far more frequently circumscribed than in the thinner and softer buccal mucosa of the horse. The more general buccal inflammations come more particularly from the use of food that is too hot or that contains strongly irritant agents. The thickness of the buccal epithelium however, is no barrier to the local action of poisons operating from within as in rinderpest, or aphthous fever, or in malignant catarrh, nor is it an insuperable barrier to the local planting of the germs of cow pox, anthrax, actinomycosis, or cryptogamic aphtha (muguet). The wounds inflicted by fibrous food make infection atria for such germs, hence the great liability to such local inflammations, in winter when the animals are on dry feeding. For the same reason, perhaps, the prominent portions of the buccal mucosa,—the papillæ—are sometimes irritated themselves while serving as protectors for the general mucous surface, and hence they become specially involved in inflammation, which constituted the “barbs” of the old farriers. Utz records a buccal inflammation occurring in herds fed on green trefoil, first cutting, showing that even in cattle this agent may determine a general stomatitis.
Symptoms. These do not differ from those of the horse, and resemble, though often in a milder form, the buccal manifestations of aphthous fever. There is the difficulty of mastication and indisposition to take in fibrous aliment, the drivelling of saliva from the mouth, or its accumulation in froth around the lips, the frequent movement of the tongue and jaws, and the congestive redness, papular eruption, vesication, or even erosion of the affected mucous membrane. It is always necessary to guard against confounding the simple stomatitis, and the slighter infected inflammations, from the more violent infections above referred to. The special diagnostic symptoms must be found under the respective headings. The aphthous fever is not to be expected in American herds, but the stomatitis which is associated with ergot in the food is met more particularly in winter and spring, and must not be confounded with the specific disease, on the one hand nor with the simpler forms of buccal inflammation on the other. In the case of ergoted fodder the signs of ergotism in other situations will be found, in the affected animals, such for example as necrotic sloughs and sores around the top of the hoof, sloughing of the hoof or of one or more digits, or of the metatarsus, of the tip of the tail or ear; abortions, convulsions, delirium, lethargy or paralysis. If not seen in the same animals some of these forms may be observed in other members of the herd. Then the buccal lesions are in themselves characteristic: soft, whitish, raised patches of the epithelium (rarely blisters) are followed by desquamation and exposure of the red, vascular surface beneath, and this tends to persist if the ergoted fodder is persisted in.
Treatment. Simple stomatitis of the ox generally tends to spontaneous and early recovery. The simplest astringent and antiseptic treatment is usually sufficient to bring about a healthy action. Borax given in the drinking water, not to exceed four ounces per day, or the same amount mixed with syrup or honey and smeared occasionally on the tongue, or hyposulphite or sulphite of soda, or weak solutions of carbolic acid will usually suffice, after the irritant cause has been removed. Vinegar, or highly diluted mineral acids may be used but are somewhat hurtful to the teeth. Decoctions of blackberry bark or solutions of other vegetable astringents may be used as alternatives. When there is evidence of irritant matters in the stomach or bowels, a saline laxative will be advisable to be followed by vegetable bitters or other tonics. Thorns and other foreign bodies imbedded in the tongue or other part of the mouth must be discovered and removed.