In cattle there is tympany, partial loss of appetite, tardy rumination, and loss of condition.
Dogs show vomiting as a prominent symptom. When the stricture is in the rectum there is a gradual lessening of the amount of fæces passed at a time and an accumulation of feculent masses in advance of the obstruction, recognizable by rectal exploration. When in the terminal part of the small intestine or in the colon, a gradual lessening of defecation, with tympanies and colics, culminating in complete obstruction, may afford a suggestion of the trouble but no means of certain diagnosis. In the smaller animals some additional indications may be had from abdominal palpation.
Treatment is usually hopeless unless the stricture is in the terminal portion of the rectum. In the latter case gradual dilatation by the passage of the hand, the finger, or of bougies which are used larger and larger, as they can be forced through with moderate pressure may secure a sufficient dilatation. Forced dilatation, or even careful incision at several different points of the circumference of the stricture may give good results in certain cases.
INTESTINAL INVAGINATION. INTUSSUSCEPTION IN SOLIPEDS.
Definition. Seat: ileum into cæcum, rectum through sphincter, duodenum into stomach, floating small intestine into itself, cæcum into colon. Lesions: blocking, or tearing of mesentery, dark congestion, peritoneal adhesions, incarcerate gut, necroses, sloughing of invagination. Symptoms: colics of obstruction, enteritis, and septic infection, eructation, emesis, tenesmus, signs of sepsis and collapse, death in seven hours or more, or recovery by disinvagination or sloughing. Diagnosis: by rectal exploration or passing of slough. Treatment: oily laxatives, demulcents, enemata, mechanical restoration of everted rectum, laparotomy.
Definition. The sliding of one portion of an intestine into a more dilated one, as if a few inches of the leg of a stocking were drawn within an adjoining portion which is continuous with it.
Seat. It is most commonly seen in the inversion of the small intestine into itself or into the cæcum, or next to this the passage of the rectum through the sphincter ani, to constitute eversion of the rectum. It would appear to be possible at any part of the intestinal canal in the horse, in which the bowels are more free to move than they are in ruminants. Peuch records a case of invagination of the duodenum into the stomach and Cadeac gives a woodcut of such a case, which one would suppose the fixed position of the duodenum would render impossible. It is conceivable that the jejunum could be invaginated into the duodenum, and that this should have continued until it extended into the stomach, but it is difficult to see how the duodenum itself could have passed into the stomach without tearing itself loose from its connections with the pancreas, liver and transverse colon.
Schrœder, Serres and Lafosse describe cases in which the small intestine was everted into the cæcum and thence through the colon and rectum until it protruded from the anus.
The invagination of the floating small intestine into itself is common at any point, and extensive and even repeated. Marcout records a case in which 24 feet were invaginated, and Rey a case of quadruple invagination at the same point.
The invagination of the cæcum into the colon is frequent, the blind end of the cæcum falling into the body of the same organ, and this continuing to increase until it passes on into the colon, and even carries a portion of the small intestine with it. This lesion is more rare in solipeds because the cæcum has its blind end lowest and gravitation opposes its invagination.