When appetite returns succulent, laxative, non-stimulating food in small quantity should be given. Wheat bran mashes, carrots, turnips, potatoes, apples, fresh grass, ensilage may be adduced as examples. Throughout the disease the ingestion of an abundance of pure water should be encouraged.
Symptoms in the ox. These may appear more tardily than in the horse, loss of appetite, staring coat, dullness, pendent head and ears, unsteady movements, rigors, drivelling of saliva from the mouth and grinding the teeth are usually noted. To these are added the more diagnostic symptoms of slight (or severe) jaundice, constipation followed by a fœtid light colored diarrhœa, a strong disposition to remain recumbent, marked suffering attendant on rising, arching of the back when up, and tenderness on percussion over the right hypochondrium. The temperature gradually rises, though more slowly than in the horse, and may again descend under a profound poisoning.
Course. The disease reaches its acme in four to six days, and generally has a fatal issue.
Treatment, is on the same lines as for the horse only as a purgative, sulphate of soda may advantageously replace the aloes.
Symptoms in the dog. The symptoms are those of congestion in an exaggerated form. There are muscular tremors, erection of the hair, followed by rising temperature up to 105° or 106°, an icteric hue of the mucosæ, the pulse is accelerated, strong, irregular, respiration rapid, panting, fœtid breath, ventral decubitus, and prostration extreme. Appetite is completely lost, the bowels become relaxed, the stools fœtid, the right hypochondrium painful on pressure or percussion, and the urine greatly reduced and icteric or suppressed. This feature of urinary suppression, determines a rapid poisoning and death in two or three days.
Treatment must follow the same lines as in other animals, a purgative of calomel and jalap, followed by diuretics, laxatives, derivatives, and above all germicides. In case of survival mineral acids, aqua regia, bitters, and a carefully regulated diet will be in order.
SUPPURATIVE HEPATITIS. HEPATIC ABSCESS.
Causes in horse: pyæmia, omphalitis, thrombosis, infection, biliary calculi, concretions or parasites, foreign bodies, hot, damp climates, strangles, brustseuche, glanders, endocarditis. Lesions in horse: from parasites and mechanical irritants, pea-like or hazelnut; embolic abscess, pin head to hen’s egg; infection from strangles, foreign bodies, etc., may be of large size, and burst into adjacent organs, the peritoneum or externally. Symptoms in horse: of pre-existent malady, remitting fever, successive chills, intermittent icterus, hypochondriac tenderness. Spontaneous recovery, aspiration, opening, antiseptics locally and generally. Lesions in ruminants; secondary multiple abscesses, bean-like or (with foreign body) very large, may extend into adjacent parts. Symptoms in cattle: fever, chills, jaundice, tympany, diarrhœa, dysentery, wasting, tender right hypochondrium. Treatment: as in horse. Causes in dog: foreign bodies, tumors, infections, blows, traumas. Lesions: traumatic abscesses, single, large, infectious abscesses multiple, small. Former fœtid. Symptoms in dog: hepatic congestion or colic, then chills, prostration, irritability, tenderness of right hypochondrium, nausea, vomiting. Treatment in dog: antiseptic aspiration, laparotomy.
Causes in the Horse. Hepatic abscess arises from a great many primary morbid conditions. As a secondary abscess it is seen in the different forms of pyæmia and especially in suppurative omphalitis in young animals. It may start in thrombosis determined by clots or septic matters carried from a distance through the portal vein or hepatic artery, in biliary calculi or concretions, in parasites introduced from the duodenum, in barbs or husks of the cereals that have penetrated through the biliary ducts, or in bacteria or their toxins which have been carried from the bowels, spleen or pancreas. The government veterinarians have found it a comparatively common lesion in the hot damp climate of Hindoostan, and a similar frequency has been noticed in west Africa. Among general affections it is liable to occur in strangles, contagious pneumonia, glanders, endocarditis of the left heart and phlebitis with the formation of thrombi in the lungs. In the two last named disorders, the affection takes place by the simple transference of detached clots to the liver to block its arteries or capillaries. Or it may be that micro-organisms are transferred in the same way. With modern views of suppuration the presence of the pyogenic organisms must be conceded.
Lesions in the horse. Cadeac distinguishes the different types of hepatic abscess as: 1st biliary abscess in which suppuration commences in the interior of the biliary ducts and usually from parasites or mechanical irritants introduced or from calculi or concretions formed within them: these rare abscesses contain biliary salts, pigments, and epithelium and acquire the size of a pea or hazelnut: 2d Metastatic abscesses which start in the arterial, portal, or capillary vessels, by the arrest of infecting clots, which determine a further clotting, the obstruction of the vessel, the accumulation of leucocytes and the formation of abscess of the size of a pin head or larger up to a hen’s egg, surrounded by a hæmorrhagic infarct softening in the centre: these are numerously disseminated through the liver: 3d Mechanical Abscess due to the penetration of foreign bodies or parasites: 4th Infection as in strangles. These may attain a large size, cause adhesion to adjacent organs, and rupture into the chest, the colon, stomach or peritoneum. The pus may even escape externally through the right hypochondrium.