INTESTINAL INVAGINATION IN DOGS AND CATS.
Anatomical conditions favor. Causes: as in other animals, common in icterus, and surgical operations from deranged peristalsis. Lesions: most common in small intestines, congestion, inflammation, necrosis, sloughing. Symptoms: may be colic, but not always, dullness, anorexia, vomiting, constipation, palpation, swelling firmer than from impacted twine. Treatment: shot, castor oil and exercise on hind legs. Demulcents. Laparotomy.
The intestines of the carnivora are more open to invagination than in other domestic animals for even the colon is free enough throughout its course to allow of one part sliding into another. The causes to which it is attributed are in kind the same as in other domestic animals. The swallowing of ice cold water in excess when heated, diarrhœa, superpurgation, intestinal worms, the active peristalsis of early life, and jaundice have been especially blamed. Reynal found intussusception twenty times in forty cases of icterus and Rancilla four times in five cases. It has been frequently seen after severe surgical operations, and it is surmised that in both cases alike the deranged peristalsis attendant on severe suffering was the cause of the accident.
Seat and Lesions. The most common seat of invagination is in the small intestines, and less so in the cæcum and colon, or rectum. The lesions are as in the other animals, congestion, infiltration, adhesion, necrosis, gangrene and sloughing.
Symptoms. There may be colics as in the larger animals, but in some instances there are simply prostration, dullness, inappetence, vomiting, constipation, or the passage of a little liquid and fœtid excrement. Palpation of the abdomen detects a firm, cylindroid and very tender swelling on the line of the softer intestine which taken with the other symptoms is nearly pathognomonic. If situated in the small intestine and disconnected from the rectum and pelvis the diagnosis is more satisfactory. Impaction is most commonly in the rectum and floating colon and can be traced into the pelvis and even felt by the finger introduced into the anus. It might be confounded with obstruction of the intestine by the ingestion of twine, but the swelling is usually firmer and the cylindroid outline more uniform in intussusception.
Treatment. The measures recommended for the larger animals are applicable to the dog. Cadeac has had four recoveries in seven cases after the use of leaden shot and castor oil. Three balls of No. 16 calibre are dipped in castor oil and given to the dog. This is followed by ½ oz. of castor oil slightly heated, and walking or running exercise, or take the dog by his fore limbs and walk him around on his hind. No drink is allowed for 24 hours, and a quart of decoction of flax seed on the day following.
Should these measures fail, laparotomy is available, yet it is more promising in proportion as it is resorted to early, before ulceration, or gangrene has set in. The manipulations are practically the same as in the ox and the outcome is even more promising. The diet should be restricted to milk or mucilaginous gruels for a week after the operation.