Constipation may be combated by fresh green food in small quantities, or by an ounce each of Glauber salt and common salt given every morning before feeding, in a drink of water (half to a bucket, if possible), and 10 to 20 grains of nux vomica may be advantageously added. Soapy injections with salt or glycerine may also be given.
Diarrhœa may be moderated or checked by nitrate of bismuth (2 drachms), with laudanum (1 ounce), repeated as may be demanded. A combination of calomel and chalk (1:12) will often serve a good purpose in drachm doses several times a day. For persistent diarrhœa Cadeac recommends the following: Iron carbonate 4 drachms, lime water 10 ounces, alum 1 drachm, powdered oak bark 1 ounce, given in water and farina.
Sepsis and fermentation must be combated by the same means as in the acute type, and the same counter-irritants may be resorted to. A life in the open air or sunshine, but without undue exertion is of great importance.
ACUTE CATARRHAL ENTERITIS IN CATTLE.
Causes: atony, debility, starvation, overfeeding, innutritious food, close, foul buildings, ill health, over-exertion, hot weather, sudden changes, chills, privation of water, irritants, spoiled and newly harvested grain, foul water, parasitism, chest diseases, thrombosis. Lesions; in small intestine mainly, tympany, congestion, thickened mucosa, epithelial degeneration, desquamation, enlarged villi, follicles and glands, erosions, ulcers, perforations. Symptoms: solid masses in rumen, impaired rumination and appetite, rumbling, tenderness, costiveness, fever, arched back, tender, tucked up abdomen, colics, in severe cases, agalactia, tremors, rigors, drooping head, ears, eyelids, tender abdomen, straining, expulsion of mucus, foul eructations, later diarrhœa, critical or exhausting. Death from tympany, bleeding, infection, inanition. Diagnosis: by concurrence of symptoms, hyperthermia, tender abdomen, no blood nor coccidia in stools, no frothy bloody mucus with tenesmus. Treatment: dietetic, friction, synapism, atropia, chloral hydrate by rectum, salines, demulcents, nux, tartar emetic, eserine, pilocarpin, sulphites, salol, sodium salicylate, naphthol, etc., bitter tonics, carminatives, stimulants, sodium chloride, ipecacuan, hygiene during convalescence.
Causes. As in solipeds the various conditions which lower the general tone, and those which especially debilitate the bowels predispose to catarrhal inflammation. Underfeeding and overfeeding, fibrous, innutritious, indigestible food, an indoor life in close, foul stables, chronic and debilitating diseases, overwork, overdriving, long continued hot weather, sudden changes of weather, chills, long railway journeys without water, exposure in hot stockyards in midsummer, all lessen the resisting power of the system and of the bowels.
As more direct irritants, may be named irritant plants, weedings and culls from gardens, musty and spoiled fodders of all kinds, newly harvested grain, and putrid drinking water. Also intestinal parasitism, diseases of the heart and lungs, and thrombosis of the mesenteric arteries.
Lesions. These predominate in the small intestine in catarrhal enteritis as they do in the large intestine in dysentery. The small intestine and cæcum may be distended by gas, and reddened more or less deeply on their outer surface. The mucosa is the seat of congestion, punctiform and ramified redness, thickening, infiltration and softening so that the epithelium breaks down into a pulp under the pressure of the finger. Desquamation may be extensive leaving a raw angry surface. The villi are infiltrated, erect, and ulcerated showing dark bloody points, and ecchymoses, and circumscribed sloughs and eschars are present. The solitary glands are congested, hypertrophied and projecting. The submucosa is infiltrated with a gelatinoid material and the same may be found around the swollen and congested mesenteric glands. Perforations have been met with in some cases, and coexistent inflammatory lesions in the stomachs are common.
Symptoms. In the mildest forms there is inactivity of the rumen, aggregation of the contents into hard masses, easily felt through the surrounding gases, appetite and rumination are greatly impaired, and there is much rumbling and considerable tenderness of the right side of the abdomen, and more or less costiveness, with hard, glazed mucus-covered fæces. There is some rise of temperature, ardent thirst, injected mucous membranes, dry, hot muzzle, weeping eyes, a small, hard, weak pulse, arched back, tender to pinching, and tucked up abdomen. There may be slight colicy pains, uneasy movements of the hind feet and tail, and sometimes lying down and rising at short intervals.
In more severe cases the impaction and tympany of the rumen are more marked, the hyperthermia runs high, appetite and rumination cease, the milk dries up, rigors and tremors appear, the head and ears droop, the eyes are sunken, the mouth is clammy and fœtid, the colicy pains are severe or extreme, the right side of the abdomen is very tender, defecation may be altogether suspended and rumbling in the right side of the abdomen ceases or becomes rare. Straining may continue but seldom is anything but mucus passed. Eructations from the rumen are distinctly fœtid.