ULCERATIVE STOMATITIS IN SWINE.
“This is the scorbutus of Friedberger and Fröhner, the glossanthrax 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 dulness 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 in other animals. Sulphuric or hydrochloric acids, in fifty 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.” (Law’s “Veterinary Medicine,” Vol. II. p. 29.)
MERCURIAL STOMATITIS.
This form of stomatitis possesses certain distinguishing characters, and develops after severe or trifling mercurial poisoning.
Causation. Sheep sometimes suffer from mercurial poisoning as a result of the use of baths containing corrosive sublimate or mercurial ointment for acariasis or other cutaneous parasitism. Animals of the bovine species seem predisposed to the disease as a consequence of their special sensitiveness to the action of mercury, which is not shared by other species.
Mercurial poisoning may occur accidentally, but is usually the result of some attempt at treatment. Any preparation containing mercury or mercurial salts may produce it. In domesticated animals it most frequently results from the action of the ordinary mercurial blister or mercurial ointment of the pharmacopœia, or again of calomel. Sometimes it follows the use of mercurial salts in uterine douches, or in lotions used to wash out large abscess cavities or wounds.
The application of blisters or of anti-parasitic dressings, or infriction with grey ointment over extensive surfaces, favours this intoxication. It may result from direct local intra-cutaneous absorption, from vapour given off by mercurial applications obtaining entrance into the body through the broncho-pulmonary and digestive tracts, from vapour given off by metallic mercury (as in ships’ holds), or from ingestion of mercurial compounds licked off the skin, as certainly occurs. Hitherto in all discussions, even the most recent, on the mechanism of poisoning, partisans of different views do not appear to have given sufficient attention to these now clearly proved facts. The conclusion to be drawn is that in animals of the bovine species mercurial preparations ought to be used with caution, and that even under such conditions stomatitis may appear. Finally, it should be remembered that all lesions of the kidney indicated by albuminuria and other signs, and all lesions of the liver, favour poisoning by checking or preventing the elimination of mercury by the kidney, or by interfering with its transformation in the hepatic cells.