Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 2 (of 5)Law, James
Science
Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 2 (of 5)
Law, James
Veterinary medicine
_Symptoms._ The subject may eat naturally or excessively yet is
unthrifty, the belly is habitually distended, the hair dry and rough,
there is loss of flesh, there may be eructations or (in the horse)
swallowing of air, lack of endurance, a disposition to perspire easily,
a tendency to indigestion and colics after meals, and hurried breathing
sometimes marked by a double lifting of the flank in expiration. In the
_dog_ which has the stomach more accessible to examination its outline
may be followed by percussion, a tympanitic resonance being produced
from the eighth rib back to the umbilicus or further. If there is any
difficulty the organ may be emptied of water by a stomach tube and then
pumped full of air by means of a Davidson’s syringe, and percussed in
each condition. Or a half a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda may be
given in a little water followed by an equal amount of tartaric acid,
and the stomach percussed.
_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.
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