Causes: early life, exclusive activity of fourth stomach, faulty milk,
absence of colostrum, milk from advanced lactation, milk of other
genus, or altered by excitement, or unwholesome food, excess on hungry
stomach, soured, fermented, feverish milk, putrid milk, leucomaines,
overdistension of stomach, farinaceous food, hair balls, morning and
evening milk, milk after first calf, composition of milk by genus,
ruminant’s milk to monogastric animal, infectious microbes—bacilli,
micrococci. Symptoms: costiveness, inappetence, listlessness, tense
abdomen, acid eructations, fœtid diarrhœa, becoming yellow or white,
general fœtor, staring coat, pallid mucosæ, tucked up tender abdomen,
weakness, emaciation, fever, bloating, frothy dejections, arthritis,
peritonitis, pneumonitis, hepatitis, ophthalmia, laminitis, etc.
Mortality: in foals, calves, lambs. Lesions: gastric and intestinal
congestions, exudations, necrosis, incoagulable blood in foals,
anæmia. Prevention: normal feeding, expulsion of meconium, care of
nurse, adapt composition of cow’s milk to genus of nursling, warmth,
lime water, rubber teat, Pasteurizing, disinfection, separation from
infected animals and places, breed from robust parents. Treatment:
elimination, antiseptics, boiling milk, rennet, ipecacuan,
carminatives, astringents, tar, calomel and chalk, gum, flaxseed, elm
bark.
_Causes._ The abomasum in the adult is protected against disorder, by
the normal activity of the first three stomachs, macerating the food,
presiding over the second and more perfect mastication, grinding it
between the omasal folds into a firmly attenuated pulp and delaying its
progress so that it arrives at the fourth stomach at short intervals and
in small quantities only at a time. It follows that this organ is rarely
involved in serious disorder unless as the result of the ingestion of
poisons, or of excess of water, or from the presence of parasites. In
the very young ruminant, however, the condition is reversed, the first
three stomachs are as yet undeveloped, and incapable of receiving more
than the smallest quantity of food or of retaining the same, and the
abomasum alone is functionally active and receives at once practically
everything that may be swallowed. In the first few weeks of life
therefore the ruminant is exposed to almost the same dangers, from
overloading, indigestion, inflammation and poisoning as is the
monogastric animal. For the time, indeed, the undeveloped ruminant is in
its physiological and pathological relations, a monogastric animal. For
this early life therefore whatever applies to the soliped applies
equally well to the ruminant.
When allowed to suck at will from a healthy nurse, which completed its
gestation about the time the young animal was born, indigestion is rare.
But whatever interferes with the normal supply is liable to cause
derangement. The withholding of the first milk—colostrum—the laxative
properties of which are essential to clear away the intestinal
accumulations of fœtal life—meconium; the placing of new-born offspring
on the milk of nurses that bore their young many months before; bringing
up of foals on cow’s milk; working, overdriving, hunting, shipping by
rail, or otherwise exciting the dams; allowing too long intervals
between the meals—feeding morning and night only, or morning, noon and
night, the nurse being kept at work or pasture in the interval; feeding
unwholesome food to the nurse; bringing up by hand, on cold and even
soured milk, or that which has become contaminated by putrid leavings in
the unscalded buckets. Some of these causes should be emphasized, for
example the milk of excitement and fever, milk that is soured or putrid,
and milk suddenly swallowed in excess. The nurse which is fevered or
subjected to over-exertion has produced an excess of tissue waste and
leucomaines which largely escape from the system in the milk. This milk
is therefore at times unwholesome and even poisonous. Mares subjected to
severe work or that fret much under lighter work, cows carried by car or
boat, or driven violently, and any nursing animal which has been thrown
into a fever from any cause whatever, is liable to yield toxic milk.
This would include the milk of all severe diseases, as being liable to
become charged with toxins and ptomaines and thus poison the young
animal, which subsists upon it as an exclusive diet, even though the
actual pathogenic microbe may not be present in the secretion.
With regard to fermented milk, that which has been simply soured,
relaxes the bowels and the attendant congestion contributes to further
derangement and even infection by any pathogenic germ which may be
present, or by microbes which are habitually saprophytic, but take
occasion to dangerously attack the weakened mucosa. If the milk has
undergone putrefaction in the feeding bucket, the co-existence of the
septic germ and the septic ptomaines and toxins, often determines
indigestion and irritation of the mucosa. These poisons may further be
absorbed and produce general constitutional disorder which reacts most
injuriously on the stomach and digestion.
Milk swallowed rapidly and in excess by a hungry calf or foal,
overdistends the stomach, which, like other hollow viscera in such
conditions, is rendered paretic or paralytic, and suffers from
suspension of both the vermicular contractions and the peptic
secretions. Under these conditions the milk, which is one of the most
admirable culture media for bacterial ferments, undergoes rapid
decomposition, with the production of a series of toxins and ptomaines
varying according to the different kinds of microbes that may be
present. Under such conditions microbes which are normally harmless,
vigorously and destructively attack the mucous membrane and determine
some of the worst types of juvenile diarrhœa.
In artificial feeding there is another serious danger. Calves in
particular are brought up largely on gruels made from farinaceous
material. These contain a large quantity of starch which requires the
action of the saliva (ptyaline) to resolve it into glucose, and fit it
for absorption. But in the early days of life the salivary glands are
almost entirely inactive, and it is only as the first three stomachs
develop that this secretion becomes normally abundant. This is sought to
be met by fixing in the feeding bucket a rubber teat, which the young
animal is made to suck so as to solicit the secretion of saliva. The
benefit obtained is however more from the slower ingestion of the milk
than from any material increase of saliva from the as yet functionally
inactive glands.
The presence of hair balls in the stomach, derived from the skin of
themselves or others is one of the most injurious of the causes of
juvenile indigestion. Lying as these do at this early age in the one
well developed stomach they interfere with its normal secretions, and
being at first open in texture they become saturated with putrefying
ingesta, which gives out the most poisonous products.
The milk is materially affected by the food eaten by the nursing animal
and such variations in the milk tend at times to derange a weak stomach.
The following table from Becquerel and Vernois gives the results of dry
and succulent food on the amount of the different proximate principles
in the milk.
───────────────────────────────┬──────┬──────────┬──────┬───────┬──────
│ │Casein and│Milk, │ │
│Water.│extractive│Sugar.│Butter.│Salts.
│Parts │ matter. │Parts │ Parts │Parts
│ in │ Parts in │ in │ in │ in
Nature of Food. │1,000.│ 1,000. │1,000.│1,000. │1,000.
───────────────────────────────┼──────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼──────
Cows on winter feed: │ │ │ │ │
Trefoil or lucerne 12–13 │ │ │ │ │
lbs.; oat straw, 9–10 │ │ │ │ │
lbs.; beets, 7 lbs.; │ │ │ │ │
water, 2 buckets │871.26│ 47.81│ 33.47│ 42.07│ 5.34
Cows on summer feed: │ │ │ │ │
Green trefoil, lucerne, │ │ │ │ │
maize, barley, grass and 2│ │ │ │ │
buckets water │859.56│ 54.7│ 36.38│ 42.76│ 6.30
Goats milk on different │ │ │ │ │
rations: │ │ │ │ │
Straw and trefoil │858.68│ 47.38│ 35.47│ 52.54│ 5.92
Beets │888.77│ 33.81│ 38.02│ 33.68│ 5.72
───────────────────────────────┴──────┴──────────┴──────┴───────┴──────
The decrease of the solids but especially of the casein, sugar, and
salts is very marked in the cow on poor winter feeding. In the goat fed
on beets alone the increase of sugar and decrease of other solids is
striking.
To the same effect speaks the following table giving the results of an
experiment with a ration of corn and cob meal, in contrast with one of
sugar meal. Each cow had a common ration of 12 lbs. corn fodder and 4
lbs. clover hay, in addition to the test diet which was 12½ lbs. corn
and cobmeal in the one case, and 10 lbs. sugar meal in the other. To
avoid the misleading effects of a sudden transition from one food to the
other, each special ration was fed for seven days before the
commencement of each test period.
───────────────────────────┬──────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬──────┬──────────
│ │ │ │ │ │ Ratio of
│ │Fat. │ │ │ │ fat to
│Milk. │ Per │ │Fat. │Solids│solids not
Animal and Ration. │ Lbs. │Cent.│Solids│Lbs. │ Lbs. │ fat.
───────────────────────────┼──────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼──────┼──────────
Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │
1st 21 days: Corn and cob│ │ │ │ │ │
meal │631.25│ 3.43│ 11.57│21.67│ 73.02│422. :1000
2d 21 days: Sugar meal │641.50│ 4.04│ 12.53│25.93│ 83.38│476.2:1000
3d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │
meal │559.00│ 3.22│ 11.86│17.97│ 66.32│371.7:1000
Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │
1st 21 days: Corn and Cob│ │ │ │ │ │
meal │604.75│ 3.57│ 11.95│21.56│ 72.28│425.1:1000
2d 21 days: Sugar meal │582.00│ 3.91│ 12.37│22.74│ 72.57│456.3:1000
3d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │
meal │527.00│ 3.37│ 12.05│17.78│ 63.48│389.1:1000
Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │
1st 21 days: Sugar meal │753.50│ 3.97│ 12.43│29.94│ 93.67│469.8:1000
2d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │
meal │601.50│ 3.15│ 11.45│18.97│ 68.89│380.0:1000
3d 21 days: Sugar meal │560.50│ 3.85│ 12.16│21.58│ 68.16│463.3:1000
Grade Shorthorn Cow: │ │ │ │ │ │
1st 21 days: Sugar meal │487.50│ 4.15│ 13.27│20.25│ 64.69│455.6:1000
2d 21 days: Corn and cob │ │ │ │ │ │
meal │379.00│ 3.51│ 12.00│13.30│ 48.09│382.3:1000
3d 21 days: Sugar meal │374.50│ 3.72│ 13.01│13.95│ 48.74│401.0:1000
───────────────────────────┴──────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴──────┴──────────
Here we find a material increase of the solids and particularly of the
fat whenever the sugar (gluten) meal, rich in fat and albuminoids was
furnished. It is interesting to note the relative amount of fat and
albuminoids in the corn and cobmeal mixture as compared with the sugar
meal.
_Constituents_. _Corn and cob meal_. _Sugar meal._
_Per Cent._ _Per Cent._
Water 13.37 6.10
Salts 1.43 1.17
Fat 2.81 11.16
Carb-hydrates 65.99 52.66
Woody fibre 8.03 8.64
Proteids 8.37 20.27
—_Bulletin_: _Iowa Agricultural Experiment
Station_.
Such variations in the quality of the milk under different rations,
occasionally affect the weak stomach of the new born, and as the same
constitution is likely to predominate in the same herd, a number may be
attacked together as a result of some change in feeding.
Other conditions, however, lead to variation in quality. Hassall found
that the morning milk of the cow furnished 7.5 per cent. of cream, while
the evening milk gave 9.5 per cent. Boedecker found that morning milk
had 10 per cent. of solids and evening milk 13 per cent. The first drawn
at any milking is poorer in cream than that which is drawn last. The
first may have only one-half or in extreme cases one-fourth of the cream
that the strippings have. When the cow is in heat the milk not only
contains more of the solids, but has granular and white blood cells like
colostrum and often disagrees with the young animal. The milk of the
young cow with her first calf is usually more watery than that of the
adult, and that of the old one has a greater tendency to become acid.
The longer the period which has elapsed since calving the greater the
tendency to an excess of salts. Certain breeds like the Channel Island
cattle produce an excess of butter fat (4–5 per cent.), whereas others
like Holsteins, Ayrshires and Short Horns have less on an average (3–4
percent.), the casein and, it may be, the water predominating. Hence
Jersey and Guernsey milk will scour calves which do well on that of one
of these other breeds.
Overkept, fermented and soured food tends to produce acidity and other
changes in the milk. Old brewers’ grains, swill, and spoiled gluten
meal, or ensilage, especially such as has been put up too green, are
especially injurious to the milk. The milk of cows fed on raw Swedish
turnips or cabbage acquires a bitter taste and odor.
The milk of different genera of animals offer such strong contrasts that
it is always dangerous to attempt to bring up the young of one genus
upon the milk of another. The following table giving the composition of
the milk in woman and each of the domestic mammals serves to illustrate
this and to furnish a basis for adjustment:
───────────────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬───────
│Woman. │ Cow. │ Goat. │ Ewe. │Camel.│ Mare. │ Ass. │ Sow. │Bitch.
───────────────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼───────
Density │1032.67│1033.38│1033.53│1040.98│ │1033.74│1034.57│ │1041.62
Water │ 889.08│ 864.06│ 844.90│ 832.32│ │ 904.30│ 890.12│854.90│ 772.08
Solids │ 110.92│ 135.94│ 155.10│ 167.68│134.00│ 95.70│ 109.88│145.10│ 227.92
Butter │ 26.66│ 36.12│ 56.87│ 51.31│ 36.00│ 24.36│ 18.53│ 19.50│ 87.95
Casein and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
extractive │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
matters │ 39.24│ 55.15│ 55.14│ 69.78│ 40.00│ 33.35│ 35.65│ 84.50│ 116.88
Sugar │ 43.64│ 38.03│ 36.91│ 39.43│ 58.00│ 32.76│ 50.46│ 30.30│ 15.29
Salts(by │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
incineration)│ 1.38│ 6.64│ 6.18│ 7.16│ │ 5.23│ 5.24│ 10.90│ 7.80
───────────────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴───────
_Becquerel and Vernois_.
Not only does the milk vary so widely with the genera, but that of the
ruminating animal with its great excess of casein coagulates in the
stomach into large dense clots which are not easily penetrated and
digested by the peptic juices while that of woman or soliped forms loose
clots, easily permeable by the gastric fluids and therefore much more
readily digestible. Indeed the milk of these monogastric animals often
form loose floating flocculi only, instead of solid clots. As cows are
usually selected for foster-mothers to the orphaned animals of other
genera this becomes a source of danger to the young and must be obviated
by modifying the milk more in keeping with that of man or soliped.
As predisposing causes, must be named a weak constitution and damp,
dark, filthy, or otherwise unwholesome buildings. Buildings with no
drainage nor ventilation beneath the floors, standing on filth-saturated
soil, and those with double walls holding dead rats and chickens are
especially to be dreaded. In breeds of inconstant color the lighter
colored calves (light yellow, light brown) are more subject to such
attacks than the darker shades (dark browns, reds, blacks). The weak
constitution may be a result of close breeding, without due
consideration of the strength and vigor of the parents. Then young
animals kept indoors in impure air, damp and darkness are more
susceptible than those that are kept in pasture and are invigorated by
exercise, pure air and sunshine.
Aside from the general run of causes, predisposing and exciting, we must
recognize the contagious element. Jensen has sought to identify the
microbe as a small ovoid bacillus united in pairs, or in long chains.
This was present not only in the ingesta, but in the lesions of the
mucosa, and in the lymph glands. Its cultures ingested in milk, or
injected into the rectum sometimes produced the affection.
Microscopically it resembled the bacillus fœtidus lactis, but the latter
failed to produce the disease. He looks upon it as a sport of the
bacillus coli communis.
Perroncito found micrococci, usually arranged in pairs and comparable to
the cultures of those obtained from the blood in the pneumonia of
calves. The injection of the cultures into the thorax of a Guinea-pig
caused pleuro-pneumonia with or without dysentery. The rabbit proved
immune. At the necropsy the Guinea-pig like the calf showed the
diplococci in the blood. Nikolski who studied the affection in lambs
seeks to incriminate both micrococci and bacilli.
It is premature to specify any particular microbe as the sole cause of
the affection. It seems not improbable that bacterial ferments of one or
more specific kinds, which in a healthy animal have no injurious effect,
may by special combination, or by growth in a mucosa in a given morbid
condition, acquire properties which render them not only violently
irritating, but may retain such properties so as to render them actively
contagious. In this condition they may overcome the resistance of the
most healthy stomach and bowels and attack all young animals into which
they may secure an entrance. Certain it is that the infection may
persist in the same stable for years, will enter a new herd with a newly
purchased cow or calf bought out of a previously infected lot, and will
follow the watershed and affect in succession the different herds
drinking from a stream as it flows downward.
The similarity of the germ found by Jensen to the bacillus coli
communis, suggests that in this as in a number of other contagious
affections a pathogenic sport from this common saprophyte is at least
one of the microbian factors in this disease.
_Symptoms._ These may set in just after birth but usually the disease
occurs within the two first weeks of life. When delayed for a few days
after birth it may be preceded by some constipation, the fæces appearing
hard, moulded, and covered with mucus. This is especially the case when
the meconium has been retained and has proved a cause of irritation. The
young animal is careless of the teat or refuses it (or the pail if
brought up by hand), yawns and seems weary. The abdominal muscles are
tense and the belly may be swollen if fermentation has already set in
but this is rarely excessive. Straining to defecate usually causes
eructations of an acid odor, and sometimes vomiting of solid
soursmelling clots. Abdominal pain may be manifested by uneasy movements
of the tail and hind limbs, by looking toward the flank and even by
plaintive cries. This is followed within six hours by liquid dejections,
at first merely soft, slimy and sour but soon complicated by a peculiar
odor of rotten cheese which becomes increasingly offensive as the malady
advances. The tail and hips become soaked with the discharges and as the
putrid fermentation goes on after their discharge of the fæcal matters,
the air becomes more and more repulsive. The same odor pervades the
mouth and the breath and the tongue is coated with a whitish, grayish or
yellowish fur.
The fæces become more watery and slimy, with much casein in course of
putrefaction, and the patient is rapidly run down by the profuse
discharge and the general poisoning by absorbed putrid products. In the
worst cases this may prove fatal in one or two days.
When the illness is more prolonged the alvine passages which at first
number five or six per day, increase to fifteen or twenty and are passed
with more effort, usually leaving the anus in a liquid stream. The color
of the stools changes from a yellow to a grayish yellow or dirty white,
hence the common name of _white scour_, and the fœtor is intensified.
Appetite may be in part preserved for a time but is gradually lost, and
the subject becomes dull, listless and weak, indisposed to rise and
walking unsteadily when raised. A general appearance of unthriftiness,
staring coat, scurfy, unhealthy skin, pallor of the mucous membranes,
arching of the back, tucking up and tenderness of the abdomen,
excoriation of the margins of the anus, and congestion of the rectum as
seen everted during defecation, mark the advance of the disease.
Emaciation becomes very marked, and weakness and prostration extreme.
Fever usually sets in as the disease advances, as marked by
hyperthermia, hot dry muzzle, hot ears, accelerated pulse and breathing.
When the intestinal fermentation is extreme there may be distinct
bloating, more acute colicy pains, rumbling of the bowels and a frothy
and even bloody condition of the dejections. The prostration may become
extreme and the temperature reduced to the normal or below.
Death may result from inanition and exhaustion, or from nervous
prostration and poisoning.
The affection may be complicated by purulent arthritis, peritonitis,
pneumonia, hepatitis, keratitis or laminitis. It may prove fatal in from
three to ten days.
_Mortality._ This is always high. For foals it has been set down at 80
per cent. of the numbers attacked, for calves at 54 to 90 per cent., and
for lambs at 66 per cent. In 500 lambs Beresow found 300 attacked and
200 died. Kuleschow sets the losses at 30 to 40 per cent. of the lambs,
and Cadeac advises that even the survivors should be fitted for the
butcher as they are unfit for reproduction.
_Lesions._ In foals these are mainly confined to the intestines which
show a more or less extended area of redness and congestion with
catarrhal or pseudomembranous exudate on the mucosa, and the submucous
connective tissue is infiltrated softened and marked by intense
punctiform redness. The epithelium is swollen, opaque and easily
detached, and Peyers patches infiltrated and prominent. The blood in the
intestinal vessels is incoagulable. Exudation into the peritoneum and
softening of the liver are not infrequent.
In calves the lesions are very similar, but the 4th stomach is usually
implicated, the congestion and epithelial desquamation being most marked
in the pyloric region. The contents of the intestines are mucopurulent,
grayish, yellowish or red, and intensely fœtid. The follicles of the
small intestine are red and projecting with an areola of congestion.
Softening and even necrotic centers are found in the liver and kidneys
and the mesenteric glands are swollen, red and softened.
In lambs the lesions are nearly the same in the 4th stomach, intestine,
lymph glands, liver and kidneys. There is usually marked emaciation and
the spleen and nerve centres are anæmic.
_Prevention._ The first consideration is to avoid the various causes
which have been enumerated. Give the young the warm milk of its dam or
of a nurse of the same species and at the same time after parturition.
If it is necessary to give older milk to the new born don’t fail to
clear out the bowels by a tablespoonful or two of castor oil (foal,
calf,) or two teaspoonfuls (lamb), or to add manna or linseed decoction
to the milk. Protect both nurse and nursling against cold storms,
overheating, overwork, excitement, and sudden changes of diet, (dry to
green, etc.). If the nurse has been overheated or overexcited draw off
the first milk by hand and let the nursling have only that which is
secreted later. Avoid the milk of diseased and especially fevered
animals. If the milk of one nurse disagrees, correct any obvious cause
in the food or general management, and if none can be found get another
nurse. If fungi appear in the milk (inducing ropiness or not) withold
the food or water from which they have been probably derived and give
bisulphite of soda (cow or mare 2 to 4 drs., ewe ½ dr. daily). When an
animal of one genus has to be brought up on the milk of another, let the
milk be so modified by the addition of water, sugar, cream, etc., as
will approximate it somewhat to the normal food. The milk of the cow may
be given unchanged to lambs or kids, while for the foal it should be
diluted by adding ⅖ of water, and sugar enough to render it perceptibly
sweet. Even more sugar is wanted for the young ass. In place of simple
water, barley water may be used, as this not only loosens the coagulum
formed in the stomach, but renders it especially open and permeable to
the digestive fluids. Another method of special value for puppies is to
let the cow’s milk stand for several hours and then take only the upper
half (containing most of the cream) for feeding. This must be watched
lest it should unduly relax the bowels. In all cases the milk
artificially prepared should be given milk warm. To retard the acid
fermentation which is liable to occur early and injuriously in adapted
milk, the addition of an ounce of lime water to each quart of milk is of
great advantage. Pigs and puppies can usually adapt themselves readily
to the milk of the cow. In all cases in which a young animal is raised
by hand and especially if on the milk of another species, it is
desirable to provide against sudden overloading of the stomach. The
artificial rubber teat fixed in the feeding pail serves a good purpose
in this respect. Pasteurizing is admissible but boiling of the milk is
objectionable, as rendering the milk constipating and thereby favoring
irritation. In condensed milk this tendency is largely reduced by reason
of the excess of sugar and consequent looseness of the clot, only care
should be taken to dilute it sufficiently with boiled water.
Among the most important measures of precaution, is the separation of
the sick from the healthy, and to disinfect thoroughly the buildings in
which the infected have been. Straw, and when possible dung should be
burned; if not, they should be buried together with the urine. The
stalls should be thoroughly cleansed and then saturated with mercuric
chloride (1 : 1000), or sulphuric acid (3 : 100), or a saturated
solution of sulphate of copper. Here as elsewhere chloride of lime (4
oz. to the gallon) with as much quick lime as will make a good white
wash, does admirably, as it is at once seen if any part has been missed.
Esser remarked that the calves of cows that had been removed to another
stable some time before parturition, usually remained healthy, provided
they were kept from the other and sick calves.
Lastly, it is important to use for breeding purposes such animals only
as have a strong, vigorous constitution, and to furnish a healthful,
abundant aliment and to allow a sufficient amount of exercise during
gestation. Vigor and stamina are the great desiderata, but these are
usually found with the darker colors.
_Treatment._ The old treatment of eliminating offensive matter by a
laxative is still good, and thus castor oil (2 ozs. for a foal or calf,
2 drs. for lamb), or rhubarb (1 dr. foal or calf, 1 scr. for lamb), or
manna (½ oz, foal or calf, 1 dr., lamb), may be given with laudanum (1
dr., foal or calf, 10 drops, lamb), and salicylate of soda (16 grs.,
foal or calf, 5 grs.,lamb). The milk should be given boiled. An old and
excellent remedy to follow the laxative is solution of rennet made by
adding ⅛ of a calf’s abomasum to a quart of 20 per cent, alcohol (or
sherry). A tablespoonful may be given with each meal. The value of this
as an antiferment is liable to be overlooked, yet both the hydrochloric
acid and pepsin are strongly antiseptic, and neither of these is
produced to any extent in the diseased stomach. In addition to this
ipecacuan has been used and by its stimulant action on both stomach and
liver it furnishes the two most important natural disinfectants of the
alimentary canal (foal or calf 1 dr., lamb 10 drops ipecacuan wine,
thrice a day).
In addition to these or separately, antiseptics, carminatives and
astringents may be employed. An excellent preparation is prepared chalk
1 oz., white bismuth 1 oz., tincture of cinnamon 8 ozs., gum arabic ½
oz. A tablespoonful thrice a day will often check the disorder.
Cadeac advises, subnitrate of bismuth 5 grains, salicylic acid 5 grains,
naphthol 20 grains, syrup 150 grains, distilled water 100 grains. One or
two tablespoonfuls in the mouth after each drink (foal or calf).
Filliatre obtained excellent results in calves, with a solution of tar
150 grams in 6 litres boiling water, given in the dose of ⅓ litre every
half hour. It may also be used as an enema. The diarrhœa is promptly
checked, and the tar water may then be restricted to ¼ litre mixed with
the milk of the next two days. One-tenth of the dose may be given to
lambs.
Among other antiseptics in use may be named salicylic acid and tannin,
salol, boric acid, betol, diaphthol, bruzonaphthol, salicylate of
bismuth, creolin, naphthalin, and lactic acid.
When icteric membranes, white discharges and extreme fœtor indicate
hepatic disorder, calomel 1 part and chalk 12 parts may be resorted to
three or four times a day (foal or calf 6 grs., lamb 1 gr.).
Among the carminatives may be named anise, fennel, dill, cinnamon, and
chamomile. Beside their stimulant action these are all more or less
antiseptic.
In addition to the boiling of the milk, and in certain cases as a
temporary substitute, may be used sterilized mucilaginous agents, gum
arabic, flax seed, and slippery elm.