When convalescence sets in care must be taken to nourish with non-stimulating, easily digested food, gruels, soft mashes, pulped or finely sliced roots. In vomiting animals rectal alimentation may become necessary. The rise of cranial temperature or the aggravation of brain symptoms should be met as needed by the local application of cold, and potassium iodide and iron or bitter tonics may be given if they do not interfere with digestion.
ABSCESS OF THE BRAIN.
Infection, in traumas, meningitis, encephalitis, strangles, etc. Symptoms: evidence of trauma, chill, hyperæsthesia irritability, drowsiness, giddiness, stupor, spasms, paresis, coma, dilated pupils, congested mucosæ, vomiting. Location indicated by muscular groups involved. Treatment: As in meningitis: trephining in hopeful cases.
The formation of abscess in the cranial cavity has been referred to in connection with injuries to the cranium and meningo-encephalitis. It may here be said in general terms that this abscess is a product of infection. In the horse the most common cause is strangles, and especially such cases as run a tardy or irregular course with imperfect softening and limited suppuration in the submaxillary or pharyngeal region. It is to be looked on as an extension of the purulent infection so as to cause a secondary abscess. The same may occur in case of ordinary abscess in any distant organ. In the brain as elsewhere suppuration may result from direct local injury as in the case of blows by clubs, or yokes, running against walls or posts, falls, the effects of butting, injuries by bullets and otherwise. In these cases, as noticed under concussion, there may be two points of injury (and two abscesses) one, in the seat of the injury, and one in a deeper part of the brain, at the opposite wall of the cranium. Again abscess may result in the brain from extension from a similar process going on in the vicinity. Thus otitis extends through the middle and internal ear to the brain, and its starting point may have been more distant, namely, in the Eustachian tube, or pouch, or in the pharynx.
The symptoms vary according to the size of the abscess, the rapidity of its formation and the amount of attendant congestion. In the common cases resulting from strangles, I have usually found the animal down, unable to rise, blind, amaurotic, with dilated pupils, congested mucous membranes, and occasional spasmodic movements of the limbs, neck and head. The symptoms may, however, vary through hyperæsthesia, irritability, drowsiness, giddiness, stupor, local or general paralysis with occasional spasms or convulsions. There may be an initial shivering, and a rise of temperature, yet as pressure on the brain increases it may become normal or subnormal. In circumscribed abscess the symptoms may be much less severe, not perhaps exceeding irritability, drowsiness, and some paresis or local paralysis.
In some such cases one can trace the connection to some primary disease, (traumatic injuries to the cranium, abscess of the diplöe or sinus, parasites in the sinus, otitis, or pharyngeal disease) which serve as an indication of the true state of things. In others there may be circumscribed local manifestations, (anæsthesia, hyperæsthesia, hemiplegia, paralysis of special muscular groups, or spasms of the same ) which may indicate more or less accurately the exact seat of the lesion. When well defined, this localization of the resultant phenomena, serves to distinguish this and other local lesions, from meningitis which is apt to be much more general in its diffusion. In the carnivora and omnivora vomiting is a marked symptom.
Treatment of brain abscess is usually hopeless, yet the attendant inflammation may be met as in other cases of meningitis. If the seat of abscess can be ascertained surgical interference is fully warranted.
TUBERCULAR MENINGITIS.
Little seen in cattle. Acute and chronic cases. Miliary tubercles in pia. Hydrocephalus. Progresses slowly. Irritability, hyperæsthesia, photophobia, congested conjunctiva, grinding teeth, spasms, squinting, dilated pupils, congested disc, drowsiness, stupor, coma, palsy.
Tubercle of the encephalon has been little noticed in the lower animals, partly because it is especially a disease of early life, while animals usually contract tubercle later in life, and partly because subjective symptoms are inappreciable, and the cranium is seldom opened in post mortem examinations. As the affection usually appears as a secondary deposit, the tubercles elsewhere go a long way toward identifying the nature of the disease in the brain. It has usually been found consecutive to pulmonary tuberculosis.