ULCERATIVE STOMATITIS IN SWINE.
Causes: improper food; filthy pens; debility; toxins of specific diseases; microbian infection. Symptoms: inappetence; grinding teeth; champing jaws; salivation; fœtor; buccal swelling and redness; pulpy spots; desquamation; ulcers; pharyngeal, enteric and osseous complications. Treatment: Segregation; disinfection; local antiseptic washes; tonics.
This is the Scorbutus of Friedberger and Fröhner, the gloss-anthrax of Benion.
Causes. It has been attributed to insufficient or irritant food, to damp, close pens, and to chronic debilitating diseases and all these act as predisposing causes. In gastritis and in infectious fevers like hog cholera, swine plague, and rouget (hog erysipelas) the spots of congestion and petechiæ on the buccal mucous membrane may become the starting points for ulcerative inflammations. These conditions appear, however, to be supplemented by infection from bacteria present in the mouth or introduced in food and water, and as in the case of other domestic animals the most successful treatment partakes largely of disinfectant applications.
Symptoms. Loss of appetite, grinding of the teeth, champing of the jaws, the formation of froth round the lips, fœtor of the breath, redness of the gums and tongue, and the formation of vesicles or white patches which fall off leaving red angry sores. These may extend forming deep unhealthy ulcers, with increasing salivation and fœtor. As the disease advances the initial dullness and prostration become more profound, and debility and emaciation advance rapidly. Unless there is early improvement an infective pharyngitis, or enteritis sets in, manifestly determined by the swallowing of virulent matters from the mouth, and swelling, redness and tenderness of the throat, or colics and offensive black diarrhœa hasten a fatal issue. Rachitis may be a prominent complication, as it seems in some instances to be a predisposing cause.
Treatment. Isolate the healthy from the diseased and apply disinfection to all exposed articles and places. Employ local antiseptics as on the other animals. Sulphuric or hydrochloric acids in 50 times their volume of water, or tincture of iron, chlorate of potash, or chloride of ammonia, or borax have been used successfully. Bitters and aromatics have also been strongly recommended.