When the gut has been emptied in this way, or in the less severe cases without this preliminary, purgatives and frequent injections can be used to advantage. Jalap ½ dr. and calomel 5 grains, or castor oil ½ oz., or syrup of buckthorn have been usually employed. The impaction is usually too firm for the transient action of eserine or pilocarpin. As injections, castor oil, soapsuds, decoctions of flaxseed, mallow or elm bark may be employed being repeated as often as they are expelled and supplemented by the mechanical removal of all solid matters that come within reach.
In cases so extensive as to resist the above measures we can resort to laparotomy. The incision can be made close and parallel to the linea alba, the rectum, or floating colon drawn out through the wound, the other intestines being carefully held back by an assistant, the gut is then incised longitudinally and its solid contents removed. The wound is thoroughly cleansed, washed with an antiseptic (mercuric chloride 1:2000), and sutured with catgut, the mucosa being carefully turned in and the muscular and peritoneal coats kept in accurate contact. Finally the abdominal wound is closed by silk sutures. The patient must be placed for a week or ten days on well boiled gruels and the rectum frequently emptied by injections of tepid water.
In case the bowel is found to be necrotic, the gangrenous section may be excised and the ends brought together by Murphy’s button, or simply sutured with catgut over a hollow tube of raw potato.
INTESTINAL INDIGESTION AND OBSTRUCTION IN BIRDS.
Causes: Age, debility, atony, matting of feathers, dry or indigestible food, lack of water, diseased oviducts, sand or gravel, lack of pebbles or power in gizzard. Lesions: masses of egg, uric acid, or fæces in cloaca, implicating colon and cæca. Symptoms: dullness, stupor, vertigo, staggering, erect plumage, trailing wings and tail, bulging anus, covered with matted feathers, impaction felt by finger. Treatment: extract mass, castor oil, laudanum, chalk, bismuth, pepper, demulcents, phenol, exercise, silage, green food, pebbles.
Causes. These resemble those already noted for the dog. Old age, debility, and atony of the bowel, the matting together of feathers across the anus, dry feeding, indigestible food, scarcity of water, and lack of exercise are especially to be noted. Malformations or other changes lead to obstruction of the cloaca, and of defecation. Sand and gravel passing from an atonic gizzard accumulate in the small intestine or in the cæca distending them to great excess. Imperfect trituration in the gizzard, from lack of pebbles, may prove a factor in stoneless prairies.
Lesions. The most common seat of obstruction is at the cloaca, and the impacted matter may be yellow partaking of the nature of yolk of egg, or it may consist of feculent matters and uric acid in various proportions, white, hard and fœtid. As in the dog this distension may be continued forward blocking the colon and cæca as well. Lucet mentions a case in which the impacted mass measured seven inches long, and eight in circumference at its posterior and larger end.
Symptoms. The bird is dull, sluggish, stupid, giddy or unsteady on its limbs, with feathers erect, wings, tail and head pendent and loses flesh rapidly. Often a felted mass of feathers and fæces cover the anus. In its absence there appears the rounded swelling or on manipulation the impacted cloaca or rectum can be felt firm and resistant.
Treatment. Soften and remove the external mass of fæces by the aid of tepid water, clip off the feathers, which would tend to restore it, then by the oiled finger and warm water injections break up and extract the contents of cloaca and rectum. If impaction remains farther forward give a teaspoonful of castor oil. If diarrhœa has already set in, give 5 drops laudanum, and mix chalk or bismuth and pepper in a mush to be fed to the patient. Injections of slippery elm containing a teaspoonful of carbolic acid in the pint will prove useful.
The bird should be allowed plenty of exercise, its grain being fed on a floor covered lightly with straw to encourage scratching, and silage or green food should be allowed. On the prairies where pebbles cannot be secured, imported gravel or vitrified brick broken into small pieces should be allowed.