Thorns, foreign bodies, awns or spikelets of rough grasses can often be seen implanted in the tongue, and if the disease has existed for a short time, little ulcerations may not improbably be discovered.
Diagnosis. The characteristics of this superficial glossitis are sufficiently marked to allow of easy diagnosis, and to prevent it being confused with the lesions of actinomycosis or tuberculosis or with the extensive desquamation which accompanies foot-and-mouth disease.
Prognosis. The prognosis is never grave. Recovery occurs in six to eight days, provided the primary cause be removed.
Treatment consists in avoiding the use of rough food, in removing foreign bodies implanted in the mucous membrane or in rasping rough and irregular teeth. For the rest, as in stomatitis, mere attention to cleanliness suffices. The mouth is washed out with boiled water, boric acid solution, mixtures of vinegar and water, or with water containing a small percentage of alcohol.
ACUTE DEEP-SEATED GLOSSITIS.
This disease has also been termed parenchymatous and interstitial glossitis, because all the deep-seated tissues, including the muscles and connective tissue layers are involved in the inflammation.
Causes. The disease may be due to a neglected attack of superficial glossitis, to some grave microbic infection, or to excoriation and ulceration of the mucous membrane. Very often it is of traumatic origin, and is due to violent traction on the tongue by herdsmen or others when administering draughts of their own composition. This traction causes rupture of the muscle and slight interstitial hæmorrhage.
The symptoms develop somewhat rapidly. Whilst at first the animal shows difficulty in grasping food, it is soon totally incapable of doing so. The tongue loses its mobility, is no longer protruded from the mouth, and swallowing becomes so painful that salivation sets in. On direct examination the tongue is found swollen, thickened, immobile, painful, and occupying the whole of the oral cavity, sometimes projecting beyond the region of the incisors, and preventing the mouth being closed. Inflammation may become so intense that the point of the tongue hangs out of the mouth. It becomes blackish, bleeding, swollen, and excoriated by contact with foreign bodies or simply with the row of incisor teeth. The saliva becomes fœtid, blood-stained and purulent, and contains large quantities of broken down epithelial cells. It is not uncommon to note more or less extensive necrosis.
Diagnosis. The diagnosis of this form of glossitis presents no difficulty, for if under certain conditions it may resemble, for example, the glossitis of actinomycosis, it differs essentially from that disease by its rapidity of development, by its complications, and also by the absence of the specific ray fungus.
Prognosis. The prognosis is grave, not only on account of the possible complications, but also because the animals are unable to feed and therefore lose flesh with very great rapidity.