Mainly in solipeds. Causes: overloading, fermentation, impossibility
of eructation, violent concussions, falls, galop, concretions,
dilatation, catarrh, ulcers, cicatrices, abscesses. Symptoms:
Anamnesis, colic relieved, followed by prostration, sinking, complete
anorexia, tender abdomen, vomiting, no abdominal rumbling. Lesions:
tear in greater curvature, most extensive in outer coats, shreddy,
bloody edges with clots, contents in omentum, other seats, partial
ruptures. Treatment: in partial ruptures, stomach pump, diet.
Prevention.
This is pre-eminently a disease of solipeds for the reason that they
alone of domestic animals are especially liable to overload the
comparatively small stomach and are mostly unable to relieve the
overloaded viscus by eructation or vomiting.
_Causes._ These are in the main overloading of the stomach and
overdistension, by the gases of indigestion. To this are usually added
violent concussions when the animal throws itself down violently. The
stomach distended to the fullest possible capacity, and lodged in a
cavity which is not all equally tense, is comparable to a very tense
bladder which is liable to burst when forcibly struck, or suddenly
compressed.
Apart from such indigestion, cases are recorded in which the full
stomach has been burst by a sudden fall in the shafts or elsewhere.
Miles even records a case which occurred during a rapid galop after a
full drink of water.
The presence of solid bodies (calculi, gravel) in the stomach or even in
the intestines has appeared to cause rupture by blocking the outlet of
ingesta and determining indigestion.
Certain conditions predispose to rupture, notably dilatation of the
stomach with attenuation of its walls, cribbiting, old standing catarrh
of the viscus, pre-existing ulcerations, cicatrices and abscesses.
_Symptoms._ There is usually the history of a full feed of grain,
followed by violent colic, and indications of gastric overdistension,
tense abdomen, dullness, then the rejection of the gastric contents by
vomiting, the matters escaping by the nose, and then collapse. The
violence of the colics may cease, but the pulse becomes rapid, small,
and finally imperceptible, the breathing hurried, the head depressed,
eyelids, ears and often the lower lips drooping, the face becomes heavy
and expressionless, the belly distended and tender, the skin covered
with cold sweat, and the temperature exalted above or depressed below
the normal. There is never any disposition to eat nor drink. Death
follows in a few hours.
In the vomiting which is independent of rupture, the symptoms are
usually at once relieved, when the emesis occurs, since not only liquid
and solid matters escape but also gaseous material. The pulse retains
its fullness, the facial expression is that of intelligence and comfort,
rumbling may be resumed in the bowels, fæces and urine may be passed,
and colics are less acute. In favorable cases the animal may even desire
to eat or drink.
_Lesions._ The usual seat of rupture is on the great curvature and may
extend longitudinally for from six to ten inches. The laceration is
usually most extensive in the outer coats, and the mucosa is carried
outward with the escaping ingesta, which helps to efface the normal
mucous folds at the cardia, and to render vomiting possible. The edges
of the wound are more or less shreddy, and of a dark violet color from
blood extravasation and clots. The escaping contents are rarely diffused
in the cavity of the abdomen, but remain enclosed in the omentum through
the thin meshes of which they can be easily seen, and which has
sometimes been mistaken for the walls of the stomach reduced to this
attenuated condition by disease. When the omentum gives way the contents
are at once diffused through the abdominal cavity between the
convolutions of the intestines. In exceptional cases the rupture has its
seat in the lesser curvature, or even at the cardia. In still others the
laceration implicates the muscular and peritoneal coats only, and the
looser mucosa, filled with ingesta bulges outward as a hernia. In such a
case a recovery seems possible if the viscus could be relieved of its
contents.
_Treatment_ is virtually hopeless. Yet a moderate laceration of the two
outer coats only might be followed by recovery through the formation of
a cicatrix. The first consideration would be the unloading of the
stomach spontaneously or by the aid of the stomach pump, and thereafter
the adoption of a rigidly restricted diet of easily digestible food
(such as gruels) in small quantities at a time.
_Prevention_ is much more available. In violent colics with overloading
or tympany of the stomach, employ anodynes to keep the animal from
throwing himself down violently, give a soft bed of litter where the
shock on lying down will be lessened, employ antiferments to prevent
gaseous distension, and whenever possible relieve the plenitude of the
viscus by the stomach pump or tube.