Causes. This has been noticed as an enzootic affection in young and debilitated animals, while the mature and more robust ones escape. Anæmic lambs, those that are fed on watery, innutritious materials (potatoes, grains, waste of sugar factories), those kept in close confinement, indoors, and those that suffer from distomatosis show the disease. Impure air, damp, dark places and impure water have their influence. The disease is manifestly contagious, but the infecting microbe has not been demonstrated. It was formerly supposed to be the oidium albicans, the fungus of muguet, but Neumann demonstrated its absence, and though he found leptothrix buccalis, bacilli, spirochcæte and micrococci he failed to show that any one of these in pure culture would cause the disease. Rivolta charged it on bacterium subtile agnorum and Berdt on the polydesmus exitiosus which according to him the sheep contract from eating rape cake. The withdrawal of the cake led to a rapid recovery.
Symptoms. The disease may begin insidiously without at first very marked symptoms. Sucking is painful and infrequent, an acid froth collects about the mouth, and white patches appear on the gums or other part of the buccal mucosa, with at times redness and swelling, and the separation of the gums from the teeth. The white epithelial patches soften and are easily detached, leaving bright red patches, which bleed easily, and tend to extension and coalescence. These are covered by a viscid mucopurulent matter, and may become the seat of granulations, or they may involve the subjacent tissues in ulceration causing evulsion of the teeth, or necrosis of the jaw bone. The odor of the mouth is fœtid. Prostration and emaciation set in, and often bear a ratio to the extension of the disease to the digestive and respiratory organs. This is manifested by uneasy movements of the hind feet, shaking of the tail, frequent lying down and rising, constipation or diarrhœa: or by cough, snuffling breathing, swelling of the submaxillary and pharyngeal glands, and hurried, oppressed breathing. The complication of vesicular and pustular eruption has been noticed. Death may occur in eight or ten days, or more commonly recovery ensues.
Treatment must proceed on the same lines as in the calf. Artificial feeding on gruels, with antiseptic washes for the mouth at each meal are indicated. Chlorate of potash, chloride of lime, borax, sulphites and hyposulphites of soda, carbolic acid, and the salts of iron afford an ample field for selection. For ulcers, a pointed stick of nitrate of silver, or a solution of muriatic acid in three times its volume of water, applied by means of a glass rod or pledget of cotton will serve a good purpose.
ULCERATIVE STOMATITIS IN SWINE.
Causes: improper food; filthy pens; debility; toxins of specific diseases; microbian infection. Symptoms: inappetence; grinding teeth; champing jaws; salivation; fœtor; buccal swelling and redness; pulpy spots; desquamation; ulcers; pharyngeal, enteric and osseous complications. Treatment: Segregation; disinfection; local antiseptic washes; tonics.
This is the Scorbutus of Friedberger and Fröhner, the gloss-anthrax of Benion.
Causes. It has been attributed to insufficient or irritant food, to damp, close pens, and to chronic debilitating diseases and all these act as predisposing causes. In gastritis and in infectious fevers like hog cholera, swine plague, and rouget (hog erysipelas) the spots of congestion and petechiæ on the buccal mucous membrane may become the starting points for ulcerative inflammations. These conditions appear, however, to be supplemented by infection from bacteria present in the mouth or introduced in food and water, and as in the case of other domestic animals the most successful treatment partakes largely of disinfectant applications.
Symptoms. Loss of appetite, grinding of the teeth, champing of the jaws, the formation of froth round the lips, fœtor of the breath, redness of the gums and tongue, and the formation of vesicles or white patches which fall off leaving red angry sores. These may extend forming deep unhealthy ulcers, with increasing salivation and fœtor. As the disease advances the initial dullness and prostration become more profound, and debility and emaciation advance rapidly. Unless there is early improvement an infective pharyngitis, or enteritis sets in, manifestly determined by the swallowing of virulent matters from the mouth, and swelling, redness and tenderness of the throat, or colics and offensive black diarrhœa hasten a fatal issue. Rachitis may be a prominent complication, as it seems in some instances to be a predisposing cause.
Treatment. Isolate the healthy from the diseased and apply disinfection to all exposed articles and places. Employ local antiseptics as on the other animals. Sulphuric or hydrochloric acids in 50 times their volume of water, or tincture of iron, chlorate of potash, or chloride of ammonia, or borax have been used successfully. Bitters and aromatics have also been strongly recommended.