Adaptability to bulk of food. Dilatation with atony. Eructation.
Cribbiting. Vomiting. Age. Rare in cattle. Catarrh, overloading,
nervous lesions, intestinal obstructions, tumors, calculi, volvulus,
invagination, hepatitis. Symptoms: overfeeding, pot-belly, unthrifty
hide, emaciation, eructations, cribbiting, fatigue, perspiration,
indigestion, colic after meals, tympanic resonance. Lesions: varying
distension, contents, action of calculus or pebbles, cardiac
dilatation. Treatment: nutritive, digestible, concentrated food,
lavage, strychnia, iron, faradisation, antiseptics.
The stomach has a great power of accommodation to the amount of food
habitually taken. In the horse fed mainly on grain with only a little
hay, it is habitually small, while in one fed on cut straw with a little
grain, on hay alone, or on green food, it is very much more capacious
though within the physiological limits of health. The cow wintered on
grain alone, has all four stomachs lessened in capacity, and though she
maintains good condition she is ill fitted to change at once to the
bulky grass diet of spring. The heavily fed swine, and the farina fed
dog and cat, have both stomach and intestines increased in capacity over
those of the wild boar, or the purely carnivorous wolf or wild cat.
The condition becomes pathological when associated with atony, and this
may occur directly from over distension. It is especially common in the
horse by reason of the difficulty of relieving the over distension by
eructation or vomiting, and also by reason of the habit of swallowing
air (cribbiting). The dog, which has great facility in vomiting, should
be correspondingly protected from the condition, yet it is very common
in old dogs, doubtless from their common vice of gourmandizing and lack
of exercise. Cattle are rarely attacked, the fourth stomach being
protected by the others which stand guardian over it and prevent the
sudden access of excess of food even if that is rapidly swallowed.
Other _causes_ are: chronic catarrh which renders the stomach atonic,
lessens its peptic secretion and determines indigestions and over
distensions: habitual overfeeding which results in chronic indigestions
and fermentations; lesions of the brain, and tumors of the jugular
furrow or mediastinum which interfere with the functions of the vagus
nerve; obstructions of the intestines which force the contents back into
the stomach or hinder their exit. Thus tumors on the duodenum, calculi
in stomach or intestines, volvulus and invagination have been charged
with producing overdistension. Chronic hepatic disorder has also been
quoted as a cause.
_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.
To counteract fermentation, antiseptics (salol, naphthol, freshly burned
charcoal) may be given with each meal, along with pepsin and
hydrochloric acid.