Chronic enteritis is a more common complaint; there is no temperature as a rule, and the pulse is quiet, though it generally becomes very weak as the disease advances. The appetite is not entirely gone, but is very bad, and what is taken is often vomited, mixed with a quantity of frothy mucus. When the food eaten is solid, and it is not vomited, then it generally passes through the patient in an undigested state with some mucus. The motions are copious and frequent, sometimes there is diarrhœa, at other times the motions are formed and hard. There is pain on pressure of the abdomen, and the coils of intestines may easily be felt as the coats of the bowels are generally much thickened—the result of the chronic inflammation. The patient becomes very anæmic and wasted, the breath is foul, ulcers may form in the mouth, and the tongue is of a rusty red colour.
Treatment: In the acute form a small dose of castor oil mixed with from two to fifteen drops of laudanum,[1] and repeated in two or three days if necessary. If there is diarrhœa, give from three[1] to fifteen grains of carbonate of bismuth three or four times a day; also from two to ten drops of chlorodyne[1] in water three or four times a day; when there is much pain hot linseed meal poultices may be applied to the abdomen. The diet should consist principally of milk—plain or with Benger’s food—a little meat juice may be added. Later, scraped lean raw meat may be given.
The treatment of chronic cases is tedious, a cure is often difficult, and under the best circumstances it takes many weeks of careful dieting before improvement occurs.
The following powders to be given with or after food:—
Recipe:
| Ingluvin, | 1 drachm. |
| Carbonate Bismuth, | 2 drachms. |
| Powdered Nux Vomica, | 6 grains. |
| Mix. | |
Divide into 12, 24, or 48 powders[1]—one to be given three times a day.
The diet should consist principally of unboiled milk, given plain or with Benger’s food, or beaten up with the white of an egg, and the quantity of course must vary according to the size of the dog, say from half[1] a pint to two quarts a day. Later, when the motions seem normal and the condition of the tongue improves, scraped lean raw meat may be given in small quantities.