The prognosis is favourable.
Treatment is based on removal of the determining cause, if this can be recognised, withdrawal of rough forage, removal of sharp points on the teeth, extraction of stumps, etc. As a rule, recovery follows rapidly. It can be hastened by washing out the mouth directly, or by means of a syringe, with water containing honey, vinegar, decoctions of brier twigs, oak bark, barley or rice. This treatment is completed by supplying nourishing gruel and food demanding little mastication.
CATARRHAL STOMATITIS IN SHEEP.
“The more delicate buccal mucosa in these animals would render them more subject to inflammations, but this is more than counterbalanced by the mode of prehension of aliments, not by the tongue, but by the delicately-sensitive lips, and further by the daintiness and care with which these animals select their food. The treatment would not differ materially from that prescribed for the ox.” (Law’s “Veterinary Medicine,” Vol. II. p. 15.)
[The treatment referred to consists of simple astringent and antiseptic washes, borax given in the drinking water, or mixed with honey or treacle and smeared occasionally on the tongue. Washes of sodii hyposulphis or sulphis, or even weak solution of carbolic acid, may be used after the irritant cause has been removed. Vinegar or diluted mineral acids may be used alternately with decoctions of blackberry bark or other vegetable astringents. When there are symptoms of gastric disorder a laxative, followed by vegetable bitters and other tonics, may be prescribed. Foreign bodies—thorns, wire, etc.—fixed in the tongue, cheek, or palate should be searched for and removed at the first examination of the patient.]
NECROSING STOMATITIS IN CALVES.
Definition. This name is applied to a special stomatitis, which in very young animals produces superficial necrosis of more or less extensive areas of the buccal mucous membrane, and sometimes of subjacent parts.
The disease, although somewhat rare in France, has been mentioned by Lafosse and well studied by Damman and Lenglen.
Causation. Its cause is still imperfectly understood. Some regard it as a consequence of insufficient nourishment, of disturbance resulting from dentition, of general exhaustion, and of bad hygienic conditions. These explanations are scarcely sufficient, however, and at the present time there is a tendency to regard it as a complication of primary grave, debilitating diseases, like the diarrhœa of calves, omphalitis, omphalo-phlebitis, etc. Moussu has never seen it apart from omphalitis, and he considers the lesions due to the action of the bacillus of necrosis. Infection occurs through the umbilicus becoming soiled by contact with the litter.
The early symptoms consist in loss of appetite, congestion of the mucous membranes, and salivation. Early examination of the buccal cavity reveals the presence everywhere, except on the palate, of whitish-grey or yellowish patches, whose aspect is markedly in contrast with that of neighbouring parts. These are fragments of the mucous membrane undergoing necrosis. They are numerous, are surrounded by a narrow inflamed zone, and may be from ½ inch to 1 inch in diameter.