Special report on diseases of the horse / by Drs. Pearson [and others].

Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Special report on diseases of the horse / by Drs. Pearson [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    71/690 (page 65)
    ounces of laudanum. The vegetable or mineral astringents are also to be given. Starch injections containing laudanum often afford great relief. The strength must be kept up by milk punches, eggs, beef tea, oatmeal gruel, etc. In spite of the best care and treatment, however, dysentery is likely to prove fatal. In the case of nurslings, the dam should be placed in a healthy condition or, failing in this, milk should be had from another mare or from a cow. Gastro-enteritis.—This condition consists in an inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Instead of being confined to the mucous, or lining, membrane, as in gastro-intestinal catarrh, the inflammatory process extends deeper and may even involve the entire thickness of the wall of the organ. This disease may be caused by irritant food, hot drinks, sudden chilling, moldy or decayed foods, foul water, parasites, or by chemical poisons. It may also complicate some general diseases, especially infectious diseases, as anthrax, influenza, rabies, or petechial fever. Long-continued obstruction of the bowels or displacement resulting in death are preceded by enteritis. The symptoms differ somewhat wfitli the cause and depend also, to some extent, upon the chief location of the inflammation. In general the animal stops eating or eats but little; it shows colicky pain; fever develops; the pulse and respiration become rapid; the mucous mem- brane becomes red; the mouth is hot and dry. Pressure upon the abdomen may cause pain. Intestinal sounds can not be heard at the flank. There is constipation in the earlier stages that is followed later by diarrhea. The extremities become cold. Sometimes the feces are coated with or contain shreds of fibrin, looking like scraps of dead membrane, and they have an evil, putrid odor. If the disease is caused by moldy or damaged food there may be great muscular weakness with partial paralysis of the throat, as shown by inability to swallow. If chemical poisons are the cause, this fact may be shown by the sudden onset of the disease, the history of the administration of a poison or the entire absence of known cause, the rapid development of threatening symptoms, the involvement of a series of animals in the absence of a contagious disease, and the special symptoms and alterations known to be produced by certain poisons. To make this chain of evidence com- plete, the poison may be discovered in the organs of the horse by chemical analysis. In nearly all cases of gastro-enteritis there is nervous depression. The poisons that are most irritant to the digestive tract are arsenic, corrosive sublimate, sugar of lead, sulphate of copper, sulphate or chloride of zinc, lye or other strong alkalies, mineral acids, and, among the vegetable poisons, tobacco, lobelia, and water hemlock. The treatment will depend upon the cause, but if this can not be 14384—03 5