GENERAL CATARRHAL STOMATITIS IN DOGS.
Causes: burns; spiced food; bones; sepsis; ferments; pin caterpillar; dental and gastric troubles. Symptoms: careful prehension and mastication; congestion; swelling; eruption; erosion; furred tongue; stringy salivation; fœtor; swelling of lips, cheeks, intermaxillary space, and pharynx. Treatment: demulcent foods; antiseptics; derivatives; tonics; care of teeth and gums.
Causes. Hot food is a common cause in hungry dogs. Spiced food in house dogs fed scraps from the table tend to congestion of mouth and stomach alike. Irritation through wounds with bones, especially in old dogs with failing teeth, and in exceptional cases the impaction of a bone between the right and left upper molars are additional causes. Putrid meat must also be recognized as a factor, the septic microbes seizing upon the wounds and spreading from this as an infecting centre. Lactic acid and other irritant products developed through fermentation of particles of food retained about the gums and cheeks soften the epithelium and irritate the sub-epithelial tissue, causing congestion. Megnin draws attention to the fact that the pin caterpillar (bombyx pinivora) found on the stalks of couch grass (Triticum repeus) produces buccal irritation when chewed and swallowed to induce vomiting. As in other animals more or less buccal congestion attends on gastric congestion and inflammation. Dental troubles are often sufficient causes.
Symptoms. The animal becomes dainty with regard to his food, picking up the smaller or softer pieces and rejecting the larger or harder. Mastication is painful and selection is made of moist or soft articles which can be swallowed without chewing or insalivation. The mouth is red and hot, and at times the mucous membrane eroded, or blistered, the lesions concentrating especially on the gums and around the borders of the tongue. The dorsum of the tongue is furred, whitish, yellowish or brownish. Saliva collects in the mouth and escapes in filmy strings from its commissures, and the odor of the mouth becomes increasingly foul. Swelling of the lips, cheeks or intermaxillary space marks the worst cases.
Treatment. Withdraw all irritant and offensive aliments. Give soups, mushes, scraped or pounded lean meat in small quantities, washing out the mouth after each meal with a 20 per cent. solution of permanganate of potash or borax or a two per cent. solution of carbolic acid. Cadeac advises against chlorate of potash on account of its known tendency to bring about hæmoglobinæmia in dogs. A laxative and bitters may be called for in case of gastritis or indigestion, and any morbid condition of the teeth must be attended to. Decayed teeth may be removed. Tartar especially must be cleaned off by the aid of a small wooden or even a steel spud and a hard brush with chalk will be useful. A weak solution of hydrochloric acid is usually employed to loosen the tartar, but this is injurious to the structure of the teeth and had best be avoided if possible. Tincture of myrrh is especially valuable both as a gum-tonic and as a deodorant and antiseptic. This may be rubbed on the irritated gums as often as the mouth is washed.