Epithelioma: Animals susceptible; accessory causes; symptoms; lesions. Treatment: Warts and polypi. Actinomycosis: Wounds; abrasions; infection atria. Symptoms; treatment. Trombidiosis: infected regions; not compulsory parasite; European and American trombidia; distinct from chigoe. Symptoms. Treatment.
This has been observed in the cat and the horse, commencing at the angle of the mouth and doubtless partially determined in the latter animal by the irritation of the bit.
It is characterized by thickening of the tissues of the lips, in the form of small irregularly rounded masses, and tending to the formation of a spreading ulcer. The thickened tissues are invaded, pushed aside and infiltrated by epithelial or epithelioid cells, which, no longer confined to the surface as in the natural state, grow in the interior of the tissues and destroy them.
Treatment. The disease has little tendency to cause secondary deposits in other organs and may often be arrested by local measures. In its earliest stages it may be arrested by the thorough removal of the diseased structures with the knife, the resulting deformity being obviated by bringing the raw edges together by suture, so as to secure their adhesion, or the actual cautery may be used. The tendency to irritation from putrefaction products escaping from the mouth may be counteracted by occasional sponging with a weak lotion of carbolic acid (1 part to 50 of water) or an ointment of one part of very finely powdered boracic acid to two parts of simple ointment.
Leblanc has repeatedly succeeded in these cases by the use of chlorate of potash, locally and generally. The local application may be a solution of two drachms in four ounces of water, while the dose of the powder for the horse is 2 to 4 drachms daily.
Warts and Polypi. These are common on the outer and even the inner side of the lips, especially in dogs. They are easily removed by the scissors, after which their roots should be thoroughly cauterized with a pointed stick of lunar caustic or chloride of zinc.
ACTINOMYCOSIS OF THE LIPS.
In the rich river bottom lands of northern Germany and Russia where actinomyces abound actinomycosis is common in the form of papillæ of greater or lesser size on the lips and nose of horse and ox. The abrasion of these parts by thorns, thistles, stubble, dry fibrous fodders and other irritants, appears to produce a raw surface for the colonization of the germ, which is not slow to avail of the opportunity. The resulting lesions take the appearance of warty looking elevations, more or less indurated, which on section show the sulphur yellow actinomyces tufts of club-shaped cells converging to a central mycelial mass.
Treatment is simple as the disease is at first essentially local, and is easily checked by the local application of iodine. The wartlike elevations may be shaved off with a razor or cut off with sharp scissors and the surface painted once or twice daily with tincture of iodine. If there is suspicion of distant or deepseated actinomycosis the internal treatment with potassium iodide will be in order.