A careful examination of the mucosa will sometimes detect slight conical elevations with red areolæ, representing the tumefied orifices of the obstructed mucous follicles, and later these may show as minute erosions. Even vesicles have been noticed (Weber, Dieckerhoff, Kosters), but when these are present one should carefully exclude the specific stomatites such as horsepox, contagious pustular stomatitis, aphthous fever, etc.
Erosions of the mucosa and desquamation of the epithelium have been noticed in horses fed on purple (hybrid) clover, buckwheat or ergot, and in some of these cases the inflammation has extended (in white faces especially) to the skin of the face, the mucosa of the nose, and the adjacent glands, and as complications icterus, constipation, colics, polyuria, albuminuria and paresis of the hind limbs have been observed. These latter are common symptoms of cryptogamic poisoning.
Prognosis. In uncomplicated cases the disease is not a grave one, lasting only during the continued application of the local irritant, and recovering more or less speedily when that has been removed. Complications are dangerous only when due to some specific disease poison (glanders, actinomycosis, strangles, etc.), and even poisoning by the usual cryptogams of leafy or musty plants is rarely persistent in its effects.
Treatment. This resolves itself into the removal of the irritant cause and the soothing of the irritation. When the cause has been definitely ascertained the first step is easy.
In the direction of soothing treatment, a careful selection of diet stands first. Fibrous hay and even hard oats, barley or corn may have to be withheld, and green food, or better still, bran mashes, gruels, pulped roots or fruits allowed. Scalded hay or oats, ensilage, sliced roots, or ground feed may often be taken readily when the same aliments in their natural condition would be rejected or eaten sparingly.
Medicinal treatment may often be given in the drinking water which should always be allowed in abundance, pure and clean. In the way of medication chlorate of potash, not to exceed one-half to one ounce per day according to the size of the animal, may be added, together with an antiseptic (carbolic acid, borax, permanganate of potash, common salt, naphthol, creolin, hyposulphite of soda). In case of severe swelling, a cap made to fit the head with strips wet in alum and vinegar or other astringent solution maintained against the intermaxillary space may be desirable. Support for the tongue may be necessary as mentioned under glossitis.
In case of complications on the side of the bowels, liver or kidneys, laxatives, diuretics and antiseptic agents may be called for.
GENERAL CATARRHAL STOMATITIS IN CATTLE.
Dense resistant mucosa protective: Affection usually circumscribed. Action of violent irritants, and toxins of specific fevers. Mechanical irritants. Symptoms: Salivation; congestion; eruptions; erosions; ergot; acrid vegetables; caustics. Treatment: Astringents; antiseptics; refrigerants; derivatives; tonics. Removal of foreign bodies. Lesions and symptoms in sheep.
The mouth of the ox as Cadeae well says has a cuticular epithelium too thick and resistant to be easily attacked by microbes. It follows that infected inflammations are far more frequently circumscribed than in the thinner and softer buccal mucosa of the horse. The more general buccal inflammations come more particularly from the use of food that is too hot or that contains strongly irritant agents. The thickness of the buccal epithelium however, is no barrier to the local action of poisons operating from within as in rinderpest, or aphthous fever, or in malignant catarrh, nor is it an insuperable barrier to the local planting of the germs of cow pox, anthrax, actinomycosis, or cryptogamic aphtha (muguet). The wounds inflicted by fibrous food make infection atria for such germs, hence the great liability to such local inflammations, in winter when the animals are on dry feeding. For the same reason, perhaps, the prominent portions of the buccal mucosa,—the papillæ—are sometimes irritated themselves while serving as protectors for the general mucous surface, and hence they become specially involved in inflammation, which constituted the “barbs” of the old farriers. Utz records a buccal inflammation occurring in herds fed on green trefoil, first cutting, showing that even in cattle this agent may determine a general stomatitis.