Causes. Apart from the ulcerations and erosions of specific diseases (glanders, horsepox, pustulous stomatitis, aphthous fever, etc.,) this condition is especially liable to appear in anæmic and debilitated subjects (Cauvet), as in rachitis (Friedberger and Fröhner), cancer (Cadeac) chronic internal abscess (Cadeac), etc. As an exciting cause and as a means of furnishing an infection atrium for the microbes of ulceration all conditions of simple lesion of the mucous membrane—mechanical, chemical, thermic, venomous, etc., are operative. Dieckerhoff has described it in connection with diphtheritic rhinitis, Friedberger with a nasal and conjunctival catarrh, Zeilinger and Kohler with aphthous fever, Mobius and Hackbarth with trefoil poisoning.
Lesions and Symptoms. There is the usual dainty feeding and disposition to masticate imperfectly or even to drop the partly insalivated morsels, working of the lips, the formation of froth on their margins, and the drivelling of saliva in long strings or filaments. As the disease advances this becomes bloody and fœtid. The local lesions may be at first like white pulpy spots of softened and degenerating epithelium, which is exceptionally, raised in blisters. This is followed by desquamation and the formation of open sores which are indolent, and show a disposition to further erosion and extension. They may be rounded or irregularly indented in their borders, and contain a brownish, blackish or greenish viscid debris. They vary widely, however, in general appearance and in their disposition to speedy or sluggish healing, being apparently influenced by the nature of the pathogenic microbe and the susceptibility of the subject. In some cases the molecular degeneration extends deeply into the mucosa, and even over the edges of the lips into the adjacent skin. Recovery and complete cicatrization may take place in one week, or successive outbreaks may take place in the same animal lasting in all for months as in Cadeac’s case associated with chronic abscess of the mesentery.
Treatment. The first consideration is to correct the debility on which the affection is based. Iron and bitter tonics, mineral acids, and nourishing food given in the form of soft mashes, pulped roots, or farinas, which will require little mastication, and the antiseptic cleansing of the mouth after each meal are the main features of the treatment. As antiseptics, vinegar is inimical to the microbes of the mouth, which affect alkaline media, borax, boric acid, carbolic acid, sulphurous acid, the sulphites and hyposulphites, permanganate of potash, chlorate of potash, creolin, and sulphate or chloride of iron furnish a sufficient choice of comparatively nontoxic agents. Ulcers may be touched with tincture of iodine, lunar caustic, or sulphate of copper.
ULCERATIVE STOMATITIS (DIPHTHERIA) IN CALVES.
Accessory causes. Infection. Experimental inoculation. Bacillus, grows on blood serum. Lesions in mouth, nose, air passages, intestines, digits. Symptoms: difficult sucking, fever, swollen, whitish spots on buccal mucosa, phagadenic sores, fœtor, symptoms of extending disease, anorexia, debility, prostration. Duration. Diagnosis from foot and mouth disease, from actinomycosis, from tuberculosis. Prevention: cleanliness, antisepsis, segregation, diet of dam, sterilized milk. Treatment: antiseptic and eliminating: locally antiseptic.
This has been observed at frequent intervals in calves, as a serious, fatal, communicable disorder occurring in the first few weeks of life.
Causes. It has been attributed to unhygienic conditions of the dams, close, damp, impure stables, unwholesome or spoiled food, and privations of various kinds, and these, in all probability, increase the susceptibility. The congestion and traumatism connected with the cutting of the teeth is another predisposing cause. The ultimate cause is, however, the contagious element and the disease has been conveyed to healthy lambs by the introduction into their mouths of the necrotic products from the diseased subjects (Dammann). Sheep inoculated in the conjunctiva presented violent conjunctivitis in forty-eight hours. Inoculated rabbits died of septicæmia. Mice showed the same symptoms as calves, while guinea pigs showed an abscess only at the seat of inoculation (Löffler).
The identity of the germ has not been fully demonstrated. Dammann found a micrococcus, but testimony from the inoculation of its pure cultures is wanting, and the buccal mucosa of the sucking calf is full of varied germs some of which are irritating and pathogenic to an injured mucosa.
Löffler found in the epithelial concretions (false membranes) of the mouth and intestines, a bacillus of half the thickness of the bacillus of malignant œdema, five times as long as broad and usually connected with its fellows to form filaments. He failed to obtain cultures of this in nutrient gelatine, but grew it successfully in blood serum from a calf. Transferred to fresh serum the culture failed. The pure culture does not seem to have been tried on the calf.
According to Dammann the lesions occur indiscriminately in the mouth, the nose, the larynx, trachea, lungs, the intestinal canal and the interdigital space.