Causes: round ulcer, foreign bodies, parasites. Symptoms: those of ulcer, followed by infective peritonitis, fistula, pleuritis, pericarditis. Treatment: of fistula.
This may be the result of the gradual deepening of the round ulcer, yet in the domestic animals it mostly comes from the presence of sharp pointed bodies. These may be enumerated as needles, pins, nails, wires, sharp bones (dog), whalebone (horse), forks, knives (cattle), and even gravel. The burrowing of the spiroptera has seemed to cause perforation in the horse. All causes of ulceration may, however, lead to perforation.
The symptoms are those of gastric ulcer, already given, followed by the more specific ones of perforation. These in their turn differ according to the parts involved. In the horse and dog the perforating ulcer usually opens into the peritoneum, inducing a fatal infective peritonitis. In cattle the foreign body sometimes passes toward the heart, enveloped in a protecting mass of new formed tissue and proves fatal by heart disease. In other cases it has been found to proceed downward toward the sternum and to escape by a fistula formed beside the ensiform cartilage. In other cases it has taken a direction toward the right wall of the abdomen where it formed a fistula, discharging alimentary matters. In still other cases it has opened into the peritoneal cavity with fatal effects.
Treatment in the case of external fistula, without implication of the peritoneum, consists in the removal of the foreign body, and the stimulation of granulations along the tract of the fistula by the application of an ointment of tartar emetic to the interior. Should this fail the fistulous tract may be scraped to make it raw, and the edges may then be drawn together with sutures taking a deep hold of the skin.
DILATATION OF THE STOMACH.
Adaptability to bulk of food. Dilatation with atony. Eructation. Cribbiting. Vomiting. Age. Rare in cattle. Catarrh, overloading, nervous lesions, intestinal obstructions, tumors, calculi, volvulus, invagination, hepatitis. Symptoms: overfeeding, pot-belly, unthrifty hide, emaciation, eructations, cribbiting, fatigue, perspiration, indigestion, colic after meals, tympanic resonance. Lesions: varying distension, contents, action of calculus or pebbles, cardiac dilatation. Treatment: nutritive, digestible, concentrated food, lavage, strychnia, iron, faradisation, antiseptics.
The stomach has a great power of accommodation to the amount of food habitually taken. In the horse fed mainly on grain with only a little hay, it is habitually small, while in one fed on cut straw with a little grain, on hay alone, or on green food, it is very much more capacious though within the physiological limits of health. The cow wintered on grain alone, has all four stomachs lessened in capacity, and though she maintains good condition she is ill fitted to change at once to the bulky grass diet of spring. The heavily fed swine, and the farina fed dog and cat, have both stomach and intestines increased in capacity over those of the wild boar, or the purely carnivorous wolf or wild cat.
The condition becomes pathological when associated with atony, and this may occur directly from over distension. It is especially common in the horse by reason of the difficulty of relieving the over distension by eructation or vomiting, and also by reason of the habit of swallowing air (cribbiting). The dog, which has great facility in vomiting, should be correspondingly protected from the condition, yet it is very common in old dogs, doubtless from their common vice of gourmandizing and lack of exercise. Cattle are rarely attacked, the fourth stomach being protected by the others which stand guardian over it and prevent the sudden access of excess of food even if that is rapidly swallowed.
Other causes are: chronic catarrh which renders the stomach atonic, lessens its peptic secretion and determines indigestions and over distensions: habitual overfeeding which results in chronic indigestions and fermentations; lesions of the brain, and tumors of the jugular furrow or mediastinum which interfere with the functions of the vagus nerve; obstructions of the intestines which force the contents back into the stomach or hinder their exit. Thus tumors on the duodenum, calculi in stomach or intestines, volvulus and invagination have been charged with producing overdistension. Chronic hepatic disorder has also been quoted as a cause.
Symptoms. The subject may eat naturally or excessively yet is unthrifty, the belly is habitually distended, the hair dry and rough, there is loss of flesh, there may be eructations or (in the horse) swallowing of air, lack of endurance, a disposition to perspire easily, a tendency to indigestion and colics after meals, and hurried breathing sometimes marked by a double lifting of the flank in expiration. In the dog which has the stomach more accessible to examination its outline may be followed by percussion, a tympanitic resonance being produced from the eighth rib back to the umbilicus or further. If there is any difficulty the organ may be emptied of water by a stomach tube and then pumped full of air by means of a Davidson’s syringe, and percussed in each condition. Or a half a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda may be given in a little water followed by an equal amount of tartaric acid, and the stomach percussed.