The trouble is not unfrequently associated with paresis and wasting of the muscles of the quarter.
Treatment. The first consideration is the removal of the cause. If fracture of the loins or pelvic bones, or severe sprain of the lumbar region, slings are usually requisite to obviate renewed injury in lying down and rising. Simple inflammation of the cord or its membranes may be met by laxatives, blisters and perhaps bromides. In the old and debilitated, tonics, rich food, open air, and sunshine, with locally, blisters or stimulating embrocations, will be demanded. In case of poisoning by ptomaines or toxins the disease which produces them must be attended to, and elimination favored as far as compatible with existing weakness. In all cases the rectum must be frequently unloaded with the hand or soapy injections, and its walls may be stimulated by giving of nux vomica, or by the hypodermic use of eserine, ergotin or barium chloride. Blisters or stimulating embrocations may be applied over the croup or between the thighs, or mustard or tobacco may be added to the injections.
NEOPLASMS. TUMORS OF THE INTESTINE IN SOLIPEDS.
Lipoma: sessile or polypoid, pediculated, strangulation, stenosis, size. Sarcoma: on bowel or peritoneum. Fibroma: flat or pediculated, obstruction, stenosis, degeneration, fatty, calcic. Myoma: hypertrophy of muscular coat, degeneration, stenosis. Myxoma: small translucent, oval, intestine mesentery. Carcinoma: extension from urocyst in horse, intestine, lymph glands, spleen, stomach, liver, mesentery, omentum. Epithelioma: colon, stomach. Cystoma: may contain sand or sclerostomata. Lymphadenoma: rectum, colon. Undetermined neoplasms. Causes: foreign bodies, microbes, constitutional, hereditary. Symptoms: tardy defecation, obstruction; in malignant, pallor, anæmia, emaciation; peritonitis, ascites; fœtid irregular stools, bloody, sloughs, rectal exploration. Treatment: surgical removal where possible, recovery by sloughing, laparotomy, useless in multiple or malignant tumors.
Tumors of the intestine are very varied in kind (lipoma, sarcoma, fibroma, myoma, myxoma, carcinoma, epithelioma, cystoma), and are found on all portions of the canal.
Lipoma or fatty tumor is most frequent in connection with the small intestine or rectum, and on the mucosa it may assume a pediculated or polypoid form and may more or less perfectly block the intestine. When situated under the peritoneal surface it is usually sessile and flattened apart from the mesentery, but if growing from the latter or at its connection with the bowel it tends to become pediculated, sometimes hanging at the end of a very long cord which may roll around a loop of intestine and strangle it. Similarly the sessile masses, as they increase press inward so as to diminish the calibre of the bowel and finally close it. They are often found no larger than a coat button, while in other cases they grow to enormous size (25 lbs. Vogt, 42 lbs. Semmer). Semmer’s case bound the cæcum and colon to the abdominal wall. The structure is essentially fatty tissue, though in some cases the fibrous stroma is more dense than in others.
Sarcoma. Small round cell tumors have been repeatedly found in connection with the intestine or mesentery. Baranski found one over 4 inches in length in the wall of the large intestine producing a serious constriction. Lucet found one of 18 lbs. weight and Mouquet one of 7 lbs. attached to the omentum. They are found to follow in certain cases the irritation and exudation of peritonitis.
Fibroma. Pediculated fibrous tumors have been found in the rectum of the horse and when large may threaten obstruction. They are usually of a loose fibrous texture, soft and elastic, and are often situated between the mucous and muscular coats. Quite frequently they are already in process of fatty or calcareous degeneration at particular points, the debris tending to fall into the intestine and be discharged with the fæces.
Myoma in the form of hypertrophy of the muscular coat of the bowel, the muscular fibres being increased in number and the wall further thickened by an intermixture of fibrous tissue, with areas of fatty degeneration. This may be confined to one side of the bowel and assume a spherical form, but it tends to contract the lumen until it is little more than half an inch in diameter. Mollereau records one case of myoma of the double colon which measured nearly a foot in diameter.
Myxoma. These are small, pale, translucent, round or oval neoplasms having a sparse network of fusiform cells and fibres, filled in the main with small round mucus corpuscles. They are not frequent in man and appear to be less so in the lower animals, but Friedberger and Mollereau have recorded two cases of myxoma in the intestines of the horse, and Chassereaud one case connected with the mesentery. In one case a mare passed such a tumor three inches long and nearly an inch in thickness. Chassereaud’s case caused torsion of the floating colon.