Mares, cows, sows, etc. Causes: traumas, œstrum, parturition, leucorrhœa, pus infection, strangles, dourine, glanders, abortion, tuberculosis, chill, poisons. Lesions: Ovary enlarged unequally, red, congested, exudate, extravasation, fibroid, caseated, purulent, abscess single or multiple, indurations, cretefactions, cysts, blocking of Fallopian tube, adhesions. Symptoms: mare: genital erethism, soiling of vulva and tail, colics, tender loins and mammæ: fever, dullness, emaciation, decubitus, paraplegia, swollen tender ovary: cow: bellows, paws. Sterility, anæmia, pyæmia. Treatment: Cold to croup, mustard, anodynes to vagina, calmatives, antiseptics. Castration.
This has been frequently seen in mares, cows and sows, but it may occur in any of the female mammals or even in birds.
Causes. The condition has been ascribed to blows on the flanks, pressure on the abdomen and the congestion of the ovary which attends on frequent œstrum in the absence of the physiological quiet which comes from conception. In a large proportion of the cases, however, the attack has followed on parturition, abortion, a preëxisting leucorrhœa or metritis, or a suppurating process in some other part of the body. These cases therefore, must be looked upon as secondary and infective, the microbes having been transferred from the womb, along the Fallopian tubes, or through lymph vessels, or peritoneal cavity, or finally through the circulating blood. In mares strangles, abortion, leucorrhœa, dourine and glanders, and in cows and sows abortion, metritis, leucorrhœa, and tuberculosis, may prove the starting point of the infection.
Sudden chills when heated, perspiring or exhausted and especially exposure in inclement weather just before or after parturition, have been regarded as effective causes, and doubtless these lower vitality and power of resistance, but back of these we must look for infection coming from the parturient womb.
Bivort records an extensive epizootic of oöphoritis in sows kept on waste ground which had been used for herding swine years before. He attributes the trouble to poisonous plants, without, however, attempting to identify them, and the probability is even more strongly in favor of infection left over from the former herds.
Lesions. The inflamed ovary is swollen slightly, or to a great size, in mare or cow like the fist or even an infants’ head. The swelling, however, is unequal throughout, and the surface may bulge in rounded masses at different points. In the early stages the organ is firm, elastic, red and on the cut surface bleeding, with here and there a distended follicle with bloody or gelatinoid liquid contents. The exudate into the fibrous stroma may become coagulated, and later may be organized into fibrous substance giving a hard resistant sensation to the finger (sclerosis). In some cases this may become partly cartilaginous. In other cases the distended follicles may have their contents coagulated and transformed into a caseous mass, while much of the stroma has become liquefied and absorbed. When suppuration has set in, the gland is softened at this point, the parenchyma giving way before the pus. The pus may be in multiple sacs, as if formed in the Graafian vesicles, or it may be in one undivided abscess. In the ovary of a cow, Eléouet counted no less than sixty-three separate abscesses. In cases complicated by ovarian glanders, tuberculosis or actinomycosis, the gross, microscopic, and mycotic characters of the lesions will afford the means of diagnosis.
In chronic forms indurations, cretefactions, cystic degenerations, caseations, and sclerosis may be met with.
Lesions in adjacent structures are common, such as thickening and stenosis of the Fallopian tube; congestion, thickening and puckering of the mucosa in the adjacent part of the womb; peritonitis; adhesions of the ovary to the abdominal walls or to an adjacent organ.
Symptoms. Mare. In many cases the early phenomena are those of excessive genital erethism: the animal is restless, feverish, whinnies to attract other horses, snuffs the males on their approach, contracts the vulvar muscles constantly, exposing the congested mucosa and clitoris, and ejecting a glairy liquid which soils the tail, hips, thighs and hocks. She strains frequently, passing small jets of high colored turbid urine, and rubs the tail and hips against available objects, twisting and breaking the hair and abrading and excoriating the surface. The croup may be alternately drooped and raised and the tail switched. These phenomena are not abated by copulation, nor by time, like ordinary heats, but will last for one or more weeks when a new set of symptoms set in. Meanwhile dull colicy pains cause restless movements, arched back, frequent moving from place to place, crouching by partial bending of the limbs, twisting of the hind parts from side to side. The loins are tender to pressure, and the middle of the flank to pressure or percussion. The mammary glands are usually hot, swollen and tender. The genital erethism may last from four to seven days. Then it subsides, with coincident improvement of the general symptoms and a recovery ensues. Relapses are to be expected sooner or later.
In fatal cases the erethism subsides, but fever, dullness and emaciation continue, the case becomes aggravated at intervals, weakness and exhaustion increase, decubitus may become constant or paralysis ensue. The patient dies in marasmus in one to three months.