Causes: peptic digestion, paresis, caustics, irritants, acids,
alkalies, salts, mechanical irritants, hot food, parasites,
thrombosis, embolism, specific disease poisons, aneurism, tumors,
infective growths, nervous disorder, debility, toxins of diphtheria,
staphylococcus, etc. Symptoms: slight colics, tympany, emaciation,
vomiting blood, tender epigastrium, dark or bloody stools, irregular
bowels; in carnivora abdominal decubitus, arched back, bloody, mucous,
acid vomit, colics after meals. Lesions: in horse erosions, ulcers,
parasites, neoplasms, discolorations, extravasations; in cattle and
dogs on folds, nature of ulcer. Treatment: restricted, digestible
diet, lavage, anodynes, bismuth, antacids, antiseptics, salol,
naphthol, chloral, pure water.
_Causes._ Gastric ulcers may arise from quite a variety of causes which
determine necrotic conditions of the mucosa and the gradual invasion of
the resulting lesion by destructive microbes. One of the simplest
factors is the peptic juice, the stomach, being struck with paresis (in
inflammation, fever, nervous disorder), while containing a quantity of
its secretion, undergoes an autodigestion which affects particularly the
lowest (pyloric) portion, toward which the liquid gravitates, and the
free edges of the folds which are the most exposed to its action.
The swallowing of irritant and caustic agents (the mineral acids or
alkalies, mercuric chloride, tartar emetic, antimony chloride, Paris
green, arsenious acid, etc.) by corroding or causing destructive
inflammation of the exposed mucous membrane may similarly operate. This
is especially the case with monogastric animals, (horse, pig, dog, cat),
as in the ruminants such agents tend to be diluted in the first three
stomachs and rendered more harmless.
Mechanical irritants may cause the lesion and infection atrium in any of
the domestic animals, pins, needles, nails, pieces of wire and other
sharp pointed bodies being swallowed by horse and ox, and small stones,
pieces of bone, and all sorts of irritant objects picked up by the puppy
or rabid dog.
Cooked food swallowed hurriedly at too high a temperature is especially
liable to start necrotic changes in the single stomach of horse, pig or
dog, the ruminant being in a measure protected by the food passing first
into the rumen.
The wounds caused by gastric parasites may become the starting points of
molecular degeneration and ulceration. In the horse the spiroptera
megastoma, s. microstoma, and the larvæ of the various œstri; in cattle
and sheep the strongylus contortus, s. convulutus, s. filicollis and s.
vicarius; in swine the spiroptera strongylina, Simondsia paradoxa, and
gnathostoma hispida; in dogs spiroptera sanguinolenta, and in cats the
ollulanus tricuspis act in this way.
Gastric catarrh debilitates the affected mucosa and lays it open to
necrotic microbian infection especially in the pyloric sac and on the
summit of the folds.
Interruption of the local circulation in the deeper parts of the mucosa
as in inflammation and capillary thrombosis, arterial embolism, venous
thrombosis, may lead to local sloughing and ulcerous infection. This may
be seen in the petechial fever of the horse, malignant catarrh,
rinderpest, and anthrax in cattle and sheep, and in canine distemper in
dogs. Vogel found ulcers resulting from a gastric aneurism in the dog.
Tumors and infective growths in the walls of the stomach may prove an
occasion of ulceration. Thus sarcoma, epithelioma, actinomycosis and
tubercle may be the primary morbid lesion in different cases.
Gastric ulcers have also been attributed to morbid nervous influences as
in dogs they have been found associated with lesions of the dorsal
myelon, and the corpora quadrigemini, and faradisation of the vagus has
apparently led to their production.
General constitutional debility has been alleged as a factor, and
experimentally in dogs, the hypodermic or intravenous injection of
various microbes or their toxins (diphtheritic toxin, Enriquez and
Hallion, staphylococci, Panum, Lebert, Letulle, and a bacillus of
dysentery in man, Chantemesse and Widal), have produced gastric ulcers.
_Symptoms._ In _horses_ and _cattle_ these are very obscure, being
mainly in the nature of chronic gastritis. In both there are recurrent
attacks of slight colicy pains, with tympany in cattle, and gradual
emaciation. Vomiting has been exceptionally seen in both class of animal
and if the rejected matters are very acid and above all if mixed with
blood it is more suggestive of ulcer. In the horse the attacks of colic
are mostly in connection with eating. or (in case the ulcer is duodenal)
an hour or two after a meal. In this animal it is possible to withdraw
liquids from the viscus by the stomach pump, and any hyperacidity or
blood may be almost diagnostic. Tenderness to pressure on the
epigastrium or hypochondrium is often present, yet the colics of
ulceration are often relieved by pressure and friction. Blood is
sometimes present as such in the excrements, but more commonly these are
simply blackened by the exuded blood as acted on by the gastric acid and
intestinal liquids. The bowels may be alternately constipated and
relaxed. A gradually increasing feebleness is a characteristic feature
and in cattle paraplegia may precede death.
In the _carnivora_ the symptoms are less obscure. The animal is dull,
prostrate, weak, lies on its belly, but rarely long in one place, and
when up has arched back, stiff movements, and tucked up abdomen. The
epigastrium is painful to touch, which tends to arouse vomiting of food
or bloody mucus. As in the horse the rejected matters are very acid.
Constipation may alternate with diarrhœa, the fæces being blackened
(melæna) or even streaked with blood. The occurrence of suffering after
meals, the constancy and persistency of the symptoms and the steadily
advancing emaciation and weakness are very characteristic. If the
tenderness is referable to a given point, it is even more distinctive.
_Lesions._ In the _horse_ ulcers and erosions occur in the cardiac sack
in connection with œstrus larva and spiroptera which destroy and remove
the cuticular covering, or with sarcoma or epithelioma growing in the
gastric walls. In the right sac there may also be round ulcers from the
hooklets of the œstrus, or irregular excavations on the summits of the
folds in connection with catarrhal inflammation. Ulcers from
autodigestion are usually in the right sac, in the most dependent part
of the viscus, between the folds, and of a more or less circular
outline. The raw surface is black, brown, slaty gray or white. The
ulcers which result from petechial fever are irregularly notched and
marked by a mass of dark blood coagulated in their depth.
In _cattle_ and _dogs_ the ulcers are most frequent near the pylorus,
and when of catarrhal origin may be round or irregular, and on the
summit of the fold, or if peptic, may be round and between the folds. In
malignant catarrh and rinderpest, they are mostly formed on the summits
of the folds. They may vary in size from a pea to a quarter of a dollar.
The surrounding mucosa is usually congested, swollen, and projecting,
and the surface of the ulcer itself of a dark red, black, yellowish,
slaty or gray.
The round ulcer is usually marked by surrounding infiltration and by a
tendency to become deeper and to perforate the gastric walls, with the
result of inducing an infective peritonitis. This is more common in
cattle and carnivora than in solipeds.
_Treatment._ If a reasonably certain diagnosis can be made the patient
should be put on a restricted diet of easily digested materials, given
at regular intervals. For the carnivora scraped or pulped raw meat, and
milk, and for the herbivora milk and well boiled flax seed or other
farina are appropriate.
Violent emesis in carnivora may demand washing out of the stomach with
tepid water with or without the aid of a stomach tube. This may be
seconded by anodynes, chloral, cyanide of potassium, or even morphia.
Bismuth trisintrate or oxide is appropriate in all animals, also sodium
bicarbonate, chalk or magnesia to neutralize the muriatic acid.
As antiseptics calculated to obviate the formation of irritant products
from the gastric contents and to check the progress of the microbian
infection in the wound such agents as the following may be used: Salol
(horse or ox 1 dr., dog 5 grs.), naphthol or naphthalin (same doses),
chloral (horse 2 drs., dog 5 grs.).
Sometimes it is well to relax the bowels by small doses of Glauber
salts, and in all cases an abundance of fresh water, butter milk, or
other bland drink.
Cases of the kind are slow in their progress and unless the animal is
specially valuable, treatment may be a source of loss.