Double colon cannot be invaginated, floating small intestine, cæcum and floating colon can. Causes. Lesions. Symptoms: Acute, violent, persistent colic, palpation of right flank causes gurgling, rectal exploration, prostration, collapse. Duration 1 to 5 weeks. Treatment: Laxative, enemata, injections of sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid, laparotomy.
In these animals the double colon is rolled around itself between the folds of the great mesentery the free border of which supports the small intestine. The arrangement is as if a piece of rubber tubing were first doubled upon itself, and the end of the loop were then turned inward and the remainder wound round it as a centre. If this were then sewed between two pieces of cloth, the stitches passing between the different windings of the tube at all points, we would have an arrangement fairly representing that of the double colon of ruminants, and, for our present purpose, of swine as well. It must be evident that no portion of a tube arranged in this way can slide into another. It would also appear that the small intestine cannot become invaginated to any extent into another portion or into the cæcum without extreme stretching or laceration of the small portion of mesentery left between it and the coils of the double colon above. The anatomical arrangement is therefore opposed to the formation of invaginations in a way that is not the case in the horse.
Yet invaginations are by no means unknown in these genera. The small intestine can be invaginated into itself or into the cæcum. The cæcum, which floats loose at the right side of the mesentery that envelopes the double colon, can be invaginated into the colon, and the floating colon can be invaginated into the double colon on the one hand and into the rectum and through the anus on the other. Invagination into the rectum, for eight inches, in a bull calf, of six days old, is reported by Cartwright in the Veterinarian for 1829. In a similar case of Youatt’s the intussuscepted portion sloughed off and was discharged per anum.
The causes are like those acting in solipeds, and which give rise to excessive and irregular peristalsis. A drink of ice cold water, indigestions and colics of various kinds, diarrhœa, chills, the irritation caused by poisons or parasites, and the paresis and dilatation of portions of the intestine into which the more active portions can easily pass. Almost any irritation or congestion may cause intussusception, and young animals in which peristalsis is most energetic are the most liable.
Lesions. The intussusception is usually found in the ileum and to a less extent in other parts of the small intestine, or involving the cæcum and colon, or again the floating colon and rectum. The successive conditions of congestion, exudation, adhesion, obstruction, necrosis, sloughing, and repair by union of the remaining ends are the same as in the horse.
Symptoms. There is acute, agonizing and dangerous colic in an animal in which these troubles are usually comparatively slight and transient. The animal looks at the right flank, paws or stamps with fore feet as well as hind, lies down and rises often, strains to pass manure but passes only mucus or a few small hard masses, if anything. If pressure is made on the right side of the abdomen and the hand suddenly withdrawn there is a significant gurgling and the corresponding hind foot is lifted or moved forward or backward, appetite and rumination are lost, the pulse becomes rapid and weak, and the animal becomes prostrate, dull and stupid, often remaining recumbent in spite of all efforts to raise him. Rectal exploration may detect the firm tender mass in the seat of the invagination. The disease may last from one week to five, according as the obstruction is complete or partial. The usual termination is a fatal one, though a certain number of spontaneous recoveries are met with.
Treatment. By a happy accident the peristalsis or anti-peristalsis determined by a purgative will sometimes disengage the intussuscepted bowel. Copious injections into the rectum may also prove useful in case of intussusception of the floating colon or rectum. Or the disengagement of carbon dioxide from the injection of solutions of sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid may be tried. Laparotomy is however the most radical measure when a certain diagnosis has been made and this is less dangerous in the cow than in the horse in which peritonitis is so grave. Under antiseptic precautions an incision is made in the right flank and the invagination found and reduced. In case firm adhesions have already taken place, and above all if the included gut is apparently gangrenous, the latter may be exposed by breaking down the connections at the side opposite to the attachment of the mesentery, or where the adhesions are least firm, then cutting out and removing the incarcerated gut and carefully closing the opening between the ends by suture. The use of a sublimate or carbolic acid solution and careful suturing and bandaging of the external wound with carbolated cotton wool will often give a successful issue.
INTESTINAL INVAGINATION IN DOGS AND CATS.
Anatomical conditions favor. Causes: as in other animals, common in icterus, and surgical operations from deranged peristalsis. Lesions: most common in small intestines, congestion, inflammation, necrosis, sloughing. Symptoms: may be colic, but not always, dullness, anorexia, vomiting, constipation, palpation, swelling firmer than from impacted twine. Treatment: shot, castor oil and exercise on hind legs. Demulcents. Laparotomy.
The intestines of the carnivora are more open to invagination than in other domestic animals for even the colon is free enough throughout its course to allow of one part sliding into another. The causes to which it is attributed are in kind the same as in other domestic animals. The swallowing of ice cold water in excess when heated, diarrhœa, superpurgation, intestinal worms, the active peristalsis of early life, and jaundice have been especially blamed. Reynal found intussusception twenty times in forty cases of icterus and Rancilla four times in five cases. It has been frequently seen after severe surgical operations, and it is surmised that in both cases alike the deranged peristalsis attendant on severe suffering was the cause of the accident.