Beside the rabiform symptoms cough and epileptic seizures occasionally result from the foreign bodies.
Course. Termination. Unless relief is obtained by vomiting or purging, appetite ceases altogether, emaciation advances rapidly, the animal becomes dull and stupid, being evidently poisoned by the absorbed toxins, and death may ensue in four or five days if the obstruction is near the stomach, or in one or two weeks if in the large intestines.
Treatment. The general treatment advised for the horse is applicable to the carnivora. Purgatives are always dangerous as threatening the overdistension and rupture of the bowel above the obstruction. Oleaginous and mucilaginous injections with manipulations are more promising if the obstruction is in the colon or rectum.
In many cases laparotomy is the only hopeful resort. Felizet and Degive have been quite successful in removing corks in this way, and Fröhner advises the operation to be performed under opium narcosis, and with antiseptic precautions. Make an incision of 1¾ inch near the umbilicus and parallel to the linea alba, extract the blocked loop of intestine, ligature it in front of the foreign body and behind it, incise, remove the offending mass and carefully close by sutures, bringing the muscular and serous coats in accurate opposition. Remove the ligatures, disinfect, return the bowel into the abdomen, close the abdominal wound with sutures and apply an antiseptic bandage.
If such cases are to be operated on it is important that it be done early, before the occurrence of necrosis, ulceration, perforation, or general infection.
RUPTURE OF THE INTESTINE. SOLIPEDS.
Causes: overdistensions in front of obstructions, softening, friability, necrosis, suppuration or ulceration, Duodenum from worms or perforation by pointed bodies, exudate in verminous embolism, petechial fever. Jejunum and ileum, by disease of walls, ulcers, abscesses, neoplasms, caustics in umbilical hernia, clamping of hernia. Cæcum, falls, blows, kicks, blows of horn, tusk, stump, calculi, abscesses, cauterizing of hernia. Colon, external traumas, calculi, worms, verminous thrombosis, neoplasms, abscesses, overdistensions, violent straining, arsenic. Symptoms: follow accident, signs of obstruction, no rumbling, tympany, stiffness, great prostration, fever. Death in short time.
Causes. Ruptures occur as we have already seen from overdistensions of the bowel in front of some obstruction, by ingesta, concretions, calculi, foreign bodies, etc., and this may take place in the most healthy organs. In other cases, however, there has been some pathological process at work rendering the intestinal wall soft, friable, necrotic, suppurative or ulcerative, by which its substance is attenuated or its consistency or cohesion reduced.
Duodenum. Lacerations of the duodenum are often connected with obstruction by tumors or the ravages of worms. These latter are mostly the ascaris megalocephala, accumulated in mass, and sometimes engaged in pouches outside the walls of the gut. In other cases, the walls of the intestine have been perforated by hard woody stalks of straw or hay (Mollereau) or of still more woody plants as in a case observed by the author, and in which the pylorus was perforated. Sometimes the exudate or blood extravasation attending on petechial fever, or verminous embolism will pave the way for the rupture. Perforations by pieces of wire (Schmidt) or other metallic bodies are also observed. Adhesive peritonitis has also rendered the walls friable and predisposed to rupture.
Jejunum and Ileum. Lesions are most frequent toward the termination of the ileum and resulting from obstructions of the bowel or the weakening of the walls by disease, or both. Ulcerations, abscess of the closed follicles opening into the peritoneum, and neoplasms of various kinds are to be especially noted among the causes. The impaction of the cæcum, blocking the ileo-cæcal valve is also among the observed factors. Other instances have been traced to deep cauterization of an umbilical hernia, the enclosed loop of small intestine becoming inflamed and perforated. The author has observed one instance from clamping of a hernia in which the contained intestine was adherent to the hernial sac.