When the intestinal fermentation is extreme there may be distinct bloating, more acute colicy pains, rumbling of the bowels and a frothy and even bloody condition of the dejections. The prostration may become extreme and the temperature reduced to the normal or below.
Death may result from inanition and exhaustion, or from nervous prostration and poisoning.
The affection may be complicated by purulent arthritis, peritonitis, pneumonia, hepatitis, keratitis or laminitis. It may prove fatal in from three to ten days.
Mortality. This is always high. For foals it has been set down at 80 per cent. of the numbers attacked, for calves at 54 to 90 per cent., and for lambs at 66 per cent. In 500 lambs Beresow found 300 attacked and 200 died. Kuleschow sets the losses at 30 to 40 per cent. of the lambs, and Cadeac advises that even the survivors should be fitted for the butcher as they are unfit for reproduction.
Lesions. In foals these are mainly confined to the intestines which show a more or less extended area of redness and congestion with catarrhal or pseudomembranous exudate on the mucosa, and the submucous connective tissue is infiltrated softened and marked by intense punctiform redness. The epithelium is swollen, opaque and easily detached, and Peyers patches infiltrated and prominent. The blood in the intestinal vessels is incoagulable. Exudation into the peritoneum and softening of the liver are not infrequent.
In calves the lesions are very similar, but the 4th stomach is usually implicated, the congestion and epithelial desquamation being most marked in the pyloric region. The contents of the intestines are mucopurulent, grayish, yellowish or red, and intensely fœtid. The follicles of the small intestine are red and projecting with an areola of congestion. Softening and even necrotic centers are found in the liver and kidneys and the mesenteric glands are swollen, red and softened.
In lambs the lesions are nearly the same in the 4th stomach, intestine, lymph glands, liver and kidneys. There is usually marked emaciation and the spleen and nerve centres are anæmic.
Prevention. The first consideration is to avoid the various causes which have been enumerated. Give the young the warm milk of its dam or of a nurse of the same species and at the same time after parturition. If it is necessary to give older milk to the new born don’t fail to clear out the bowels by a tablespoonful or two of castor oil (foal, calf,) or two teaspoonfuls (lamb), or to add manna or linseed decoction to the milk. Protect both nurse and nursling against cold storms, overheating, overwork, excitement, and sudden changes of diet, (dry to green, etc.). If the nurse has been overheated or overexcited draw off the first milk by hand and let the nursling have only that which is secreted later. Avoid the milk of diseased and especially fevered animals. If the milk of one nurse disagrees, correct any obvious cause in the food or general management, and if none can be found get another nurse. If fungi appear in the milk (inducing ropiness or not) withold the food or water from which they have been probably derived and give bisulphite of soda (cow or mare 2 to 4 drs., ewe ½ dr. daily). When an animal of one genus has to be brought up on the milk of another, let the milk be so modified by the addition of water, sugar, cream, etc., as will approximate it somewhat to the normal food. The milk of the cow may be given unchanged to lambs or kids, while for the foal it should be diluted by adding ⅖ of water, and sugar enough to render it perceptibly sweet. Even more sugar is wanted for the young ass. In place of simple water, barley water may be used, as this not only loosens the coagulum formed in the stomach, but renders it especially open and permeable to the digestive fluids. Another method of special value for puppies is to let the cow’s milk stand for several hours and then take only the upper half (containing most of the cream) for feeding. This must be watched lest it should unduly relax the bowels. In all cases the milk artificially prepared should be given milk warm. To retard the acid fermentation which is liable to occur early and injuriously in adapted milk, the addition of an ounce of lime water to each quart of milk is of great advantage. Pigs and puppies can usually adapt themselves readily to the milk of the cow. In all cases in which a young animal is raised by hand and especially if on the milk of another species, it is desirable to provide against sudden overloading of the stomach. The artificial rubber teat fixed in the feeding pail serves a good purpose in this respect. Pasteurizing is admissible but boiling of the milk is objectionable, as rendering the milk constipating and thereby favoring irritation. In condensed milk this tendency is largely reduced by reason of the excess of sugar and consequent looseness of the clot, only care should be taken to dilute it sufficiently with boiled water.
Among the most important measures of precaution, is the separation of the sick from the healthy, and to disinfect thoroughly the buildings in which the infected have been. Straw, and when possible dung should be burned; if not, they should be buried together with the urine. The stalls should be thoroughly cleansed and then saturated with mercuric chloride (1 : 1000), or sulphuric acid (3 : 100), or a saturated solution of sulphate of copper. Here as elsewhere chloride of lime (4 oz. to the gallon) with as much quick lime as will make a good white wash, does admirably, as it is at once seen if any part has been missed.
Esser remarked that the calves of cows that had been removed to another stable some time before parturition, usually remained healthy, provided they were kept from the other and sick calves.