Treatment. Evacuate the stomach by ipecacuan, etc., and the bowels by a purgative. Next seek elimination of the toxins by potassium iodide and other diuretics. Antiseptics (calomel, salol, naphthalin) to counteract the further formation of toxins, and demulcents by draught and enema are indicated. In cases of great prostration, heart and nerve stimulants may be useful.
DIARRHŒA, SCOURING.
Definition. Concomitant of other affections. Causes: Congestion, effusion from small and large intestine, irritants in bowels, or blood, chill or other shock acting as reflex, cold drink and violent exercise, aqueous food, cooked, pulped; irritants, feculent concretions, parasites, fermentation products, diseased teeth, jaws or salivary glands, drink after grain, gastric hepatic or pancreatic disease, spoiled food, purgative agents in food, fever products, purgative waters, rains, dews, damp stalls, etc., fear, “washy” horses, nervous animals, root diet, œstrum, hepatic torpor, equine susceptibility. Symptoms: with root diet, with much or little bile, slight cases do not affect system, in severe cases, tympany, pawing, straining, fœtor, in infective diseases; complications, laminitis, enteritis, pneumonia. Treatment: remove or expel cause, demulcents, laxatives, anodynes, antiseptics; chronic cases, iron, bitters, antiseptics, astringents, dietetics, rest.
Definition. A frequent discharge of fluid or semi-fluid evacuations from the bowels without excessive griping or painful straining.
This is a common condition attending many diseases, rather than a specific disease of itself yet it is such a prominent feature of these various affections, and one so very characteristic that it seems well to give it a special place, even at the risk of repeating much of what must necessarily appear elsewhere.
The immediate cause of diarrhœa is a congestion of the intestinal mucous membrane and a profuse secretion into the intestinal canal. When such congestion occurs in the small intestine alone, it may be counterbalanced by increased absorption in the large, so that the secretion must be excessive to produce liquid alvine discharges. When on the other hand it occurs in the large intestine or in both large and small, the product is likely to escape in the liquid form.
In its turn the congestion of the intestinal mucosa may result from irritants in the bowels, from the presence in the blood of irritant agents which being secreted stimulate the intestinal glands to excessive secretion, and from reflex nervous action, starting from a distant point as in chilling or irritation of the skin or other organ.
Among direct irritants of the intestinal mucosa may be named a full drink of cold water especially if the horse is trotted or galloped for twenty minutes immediately after;—soft, juicy, rapidly grown green food, to which the animal is unaccustomed, as the first grasses of spring;—cooked or pulped food or ensilage in hard worked animals;—many irritant and acid plants;—accumulations of hard feculent masses in the intestines;—irritation caused by intestinal worms especially the blood-suckers;—the presence in the intestines of undigested matters, and resulting fermentations, the result of diseased teeth and jaws and imperfect mastication, of disease of the salivary glands or ducts and imperfect insalivation, of a drink of water after a grain feed, washing a part out of the stomach in an undigested condition, of disease of the stomach, liver or pancreas interfering with their proper functions; unwholesome and fermenting food like spoiled grain, or fodder, or decomposed potatoes, apples, turnips, pumpkins, carrots, cabbages, etc.;—stagnant and putrid water;—tumors, ulcers, volvulus, invaginations, adhesions and other serious lesions of the bowels may act in the same way.
As examples of the secretion of irritant matters from the blood may be mentioned almost all the different agents used as purgatives, and purgative agents accidentally taken in, these being as a rule absorbed and later secreted again on the intestinal surface, increasing the secretions in their passage:—also the morbid products of fevers which irritate the intestinal mucosa and glands as they are thrown out by them (rinderpest, lung plague, Southern cattle fever):—the purgative waters on certain “scouring lands” act in a similar way. Under the head of reflex action may be named the chills from exposure to cold rains, night dews, damp stalls or beds, and damp, hot buildings, seasons and localities. Under the head of nervous causes must be included strong emotions as excitement, fear, etc., which lead to increase of both secretion and peristalsis. Some horses are very subject to this and are known as “washy”. These have usually a slim abdomen and long loin, and scour whenever they are put to hard work. Other nervous animals with good conformation, but which fret under saddle or in harness will scour under specially severe work or under excitement. This is especially common in young colts while being “broken”, and will occasionally show in mares which are in heat. Cattle that have been on a specially succulent diet (turnips, beets, ensilage, grass) are liable to scour profusely if driven far or fast, and stock men seek to obviate this by feeding some dry bran, meal, and above all fresh dry brewer’s grains just before starting. Cows running at large when in heat are very liable to scour. An exclusive diet of turnips or beets will keep cattle in a chronic condition of mild diarrhœa, though not enough to interfere with rapid improvement in flesh. Chronic diseases of the liver by obstructing the flow of blood through the portal vein, cause intestinal congestion and predispose to diarrhœa.
Of the various domestic animals horses are the most liable to superpurgation, from an undue dose of aloes acting on the very large colon and cæcum. Hence the importance of using such an agent carefully in the young, fat or debilitated especially, of the avoidance of cold drinks or exercise to excess after the aloes has been given, and of keeping from work during its operation or immediately after.