Treatment. Relief may sometimes be obtained by the extraction of a hair ball lodged in the rectum or adjacent part of the floating colon. In other cases abundant soapy or oily enemata, and the employment of eserine or barium chloride subcutem are indicated.
HAIR AND BRISTLE BALLS IN DOG AND PIG.
From licking in skin disease. Symptoms: of obstruction. Treatment: manipulation, enemata, oil, antispasmodics, eserine, barium chloride, laparotomy, diet in convalescence.
The hair balls of dogs come mainly from licking themselves when affected with skin diseases or parasites. In pigs they are mostly attributed to depraved appetite.
The hair balls of the dog are small, open in texture, and easily disintegrated, having little mucus and no earthy salts in their composition.
The bristle balls of pigs take the form of straight or curved rods of firm consistency, but without earthy salts. The projecting ends of the bristles render them particularly irritating.
The symptoms are those of obstruction of the bowels, and the treatment consists in efforts to dislodge them. If situated near the anus they may sometimes be reached with the finger, or copious oily injections may facilitate their passage. Manipulations through the abdominal walls may be helpful in the dog. Oleaginous laxatives and antispasmodics may be tried, or these failing, eserine or barium chloride. As a last resort laparotomy may be performed, the ball abstracted and the intestine and abdominal wall carefully sutured (Siedamgrotzky). In such a case the diet should be restricted for a week to beef soups, buttermilk, and well boiled gruels, especially flaxseed.
INTESTINAL CALCULI. ENTEROLITHS. BEZOARS.
Earthy basis, nucleus, stratification, in cæcum or colon, multiple, size, number up to 1000. Composition, phosphates of lime, magnesia, and ammonia, silica, mucus, epithelium, organic matter. Ammonio-magnesian tend to crystalline form, common phosphate of lime to smooth forms. Concretions. Source in food. Ammonia from bacteridian fermentation, action of colloids, varied nuclei, rapid growth. Lesions: catarrh, dilation, obstruction, rupture, peritonitis. Symptoms: intermittent colics with obstruction, tympany, bowel distension, liquid and gaseous, before obstruction. Diagnosis: by hand in rectum, hard obstruction with distension in front. Treatment: purgative dangerous, but exceptionally successful, extraction, oleaginous enemata, laparotomy.
Horse. Intestinal calculi have an earthy basis (ammonio-magnesian phosphate, or oxalate of lime, and more or less silica) glued together by mucus and having a central nucleus usually of some foreign body, (a particle of sand, pebble, morsel of hair, lead, cloth, nail, coin, blood clot, or inspissated mucus) around which the earthy salts have been deposited layer after layer. They are usually formed in the cæcum or double colon and may be multiple and moulded upon each other, so that they become discoid, angular or otherwise altered from the globular shape. The worn, flattened surface in such cases shows concentric rings representing the layers as deposited in succession.