Lesions. The distension of the stomach may reach ten times its normal size in the horse (Leisering). Kitt found a stomach with a capacity of 84 quarts. Fitzroy Philipot took from a dilated equine stomach 140 lbs. of contents. The contents of the viscus are usually largely of solids which the weakened and attenuated walls failed to pass into the duodenum. On the contrary and as if by compensation, the pylorus and duodenum are constricted and the latter has liquid contents which pass from the stomach with very little of the solids.
Special dilatations are sometimes met with, thus an equine stomach has been found largely dilated at the greater curvature where concretions formed in the viscus or pebbles introduced with the food had habitually lodged. In other cases the cardia has been dilated like a funnel, so that the animal could eructate or vomit with great facility. This last dilatation is especially common in cribbiters.
Treatment. This must necessarily be prolonged as time must be allowed for a tonic contraction of the viscus. Food must be given often in small quantity, of easy digestion, and of aqueous composition. For dogs, milk, eggs and soups, or pulped raw meat furnish examples. For horses milk gruels, boiled flax seed, pulped roots may suffice. If the stomach is loaded as is usually the case, it should be washed out with the stomach tube, which when passed into the stomach should be raised at its free end and filled with tepid water; it is then suddenly lowered so as to act as a syphon in evacuating the liquid contents of the stomach. This may be repeated again and again, the stomach in the case of the dog being manipulated so as to mix and float the solids and favor their exit through the tube. Daily washing out of the stomach by the tube is of the greatest possible value.
Meanwhile we should seek to improve the tone of the stomach by strychnia (horse 2 grs., dog ¹⁄₆₀ gr. daily), by salts of iron, and by faradisation.
To counteract fermentation, antiseptics (salol, naphthol, freshly burned charcoal) may be given with each meal, along with pepsin and hydrochloric acid.
RUPTURE OF THE STOMACH IN SOLIPEDS.
Mainly in solipeds. Causes: overloading, fermentation, impossibility of eructation, violent concussions, falls, galop, concretions, dilatation, catarrh, ulcers, cicatrices, abscesses. Symptoms: Anamnesis, colic relieved, followed by prostration, sinking, complete anorexia, tender abdomen, vomiting, no abdominal rumbling. Lesions: tear in greater curvature, most extensive in outer coats, shreddy, bloody edges with clots, contents in omentum, other seats, partial ruptures. Treatment: in partial ruptures, stomach pump, diet. Prevention.
This is pre-eminently a disease of solipeds for the reason that they alone of domestic animals are especially liable to overload the comparatively small stomach and are mostly unable to relieve the overloaded viscus by eructation or vomiting.
Causes. These are in the main overloading of the stomach and overdistension, by the gases of indigestion. To this are usually added violent concussions when the animal throws itself down violently. The stomach distended to the fullest possible capacity, and lodged in a cavity which is not all equally tense, is comparable to a very tense bladder which is liable to burst when forcibly struck, or suddenly compressed.
Apart from such indigestion, cases are recorded in which the full stomach has been burst by a sudden fall in the shafts or elsewhere. Miles even records a case which occurred during a rapid galop after a full drink of water.