Mostly in cattle from over feeding, dry feeding, inactivity. Small. Multiple. Round, angular, lobulated. Nucleus. Composition. Dilated ducts. Atrophied or sclerosed glandular tissue. Prevention: succulent food, water at will, open air life, correction of local catarrh.
Pancreatic like biliary calculi have been found especially in cattle. They appear to be predisposed by their stimulating, forcing feeding, by their quiet life apart from all causes of excitement and especially by the combined effect of dry feeding and prolonged confinement in the stall through the long winter.
The calculi are usually small but numerous, Jungers having found 36 weighing 38 grammes. Bär has found a mass with an aggregate weight of 23 grammes.
The form of the calculus varies; many are angular from mutual attrition in the large ducts; others from the smaller ducts are rounded; those from the glandular follicles may be even lobulated, in keeping with the divisions of the cavity. The color is white and each shows a distinct central nucleus of epithelial, mucus, or other origin. Their specific gravity is 2.397 (Fürstenberg), and their composition 92 per cent. calcium carbonate, 4 per cent. magnesia, and traces of calcium phosphate (Gurlt).
The pancreatic ducts are as a rule greatly dilated and thickened (in man they form enormous cysts, Senn, Osler), and the glandular tissue is atrophied, indurated (sclerosed), and of a brownish yellow color.
Treatment of such cases would be unsatisfactory. By way of prevention succulent food, abundance of pure water, and the correction of any infective catarrhal affection of the duodenum, or of the bile or pancreatic ducts would be specially indicated. Free exercise in the open air would be desirable.
PANCREATIC NEOPLASMS. TUMORS.
Often malignant, and secondary. Melanoma in white horse. Carcinoma in mare and dog. Epithelioma. Debility, icterus, abdominal swelling, emaciation. Treatment: laparotomy, or potassium iodide.
Tumors of the pancreas are quite frequently malignant, and show a preference for the head of the organ. They may be primary but are more frequently secondary.
In gray horses melanotic tumors are found, in connection with similar formations externally, and especially as age advances. Brückmüller found them of varying size, from a pea to a hazel nut, scattered through the pancreas and adjacent tissues.