Capacity adapted to ingesta, rich and nutritious food improves breeds,
excessive filling renders paretic, dilates; obstructions, impactions,
strangulations, hernias, invaginations, twisting, tumors,
compressions, calculi, lowered innervation, impaired circulation,
verminous aneurism, peritonitis, persistent umbilical vesicle in horse
and ox, hernia of mucous through muscular coat, cæcal dilatation,
colic, rectal, with atresia ani, diseased end of cord, retained fæces.
Symptoms: colics after meals, abdominal and rectal exploration, softer
than impaction. Treatment: empty mechanically or by laxatives,
demulcents, kneading, stimulants, nux vomica, ergot, barium chloride,
eserine, rich concentrated food, electricity, enemata, laxatives.
It is a physiological law that the intestine developes in ratio with the
demands made upon it, provided these demands are not too sudden and
extreme. Thus the domestic pig and rabbit have intestines at once longer
and more capacious than those of the wild varieties. The same is true of
cattle and even of horses, heavy, rich feeding, generation after
generation, increases the capacity to take in and utilize more, and to
attain to a larger size and earlier maturity. In such a case the walls
of the intestinal canal retain their primary thickness and strength and
the whole change is in the direction of physiological improvement for
economical ends.
When, however, the retention or habitual accumulation of food in the
alimentary canal exceeds the self-adapting powers of its walls a true
pathological dilatation takes place, and attenuation or thickening and
paresis or actual paralysis of the walls ensues.
Whatever interferes with the normal active movement of the ingesta
predisposes to this. Thus partial obstructions of all kinds, strictures,
impactions, strangulations, hernias, invaginations, twisting, tumors,
compressions, calculi, contribute to the overfilling of the bowel in
front of them and to its more or less speedy dilatation. Whatever
weakens the muscular walls of the bowels or the nerves presiding over
these has a similar effect. Thus pressure on the solar plexus or its
branches from any cause, or degeneration of the same, a tardy and
imperfect circulation resulting from verminous aneurism and thrombosis,
and a circumscribed peritonitis extending from the serous to the
muscular coat of the bowel act in this way.
The persistence of the canal of the umbilical vesicle has been
repeatedly observed in solipeds, in the form of a pouch or dilatation
connected with the ileum three or four inches in front of the ileo-cæcal
valve. Rauscher records one of these of thirteen inches long and having
a capacity of seven quarts. These have been noticed in cattle as well.
Another form of sacculation results from rupture of the muscular coat
through which the mucous forms a hernial sac in the peritoneal cavity.
On a small scale these sacs are not uncommon, the size of a pea, a bean,
or a marble, and very often containing larval or mature worms. Degive
records an enormous dilatation of the horse’s cæcum, Peuch, one of the
pelvic flexure of the colon having a capacity of forty pounds, and
Simonin one of the floating colon. Dilatations of the rectum always take
place in the new born affected with atresia ani.
Dilatation of the rectum into a cloaca is found in the horse and ox,
often connected with disease or injury of the terminal part of the
spinal cord, and is very common in dogs and cats in connection with the
compulsory retention of the fæces indoors. Pigs also present instances
of the kind.
The _symptoms_ are in the main slight colics, with or without tympany
and recurring after each meal. In the small animals the distended gut
may often be recognized by palpation through the abdominal walls, and in
the larger animals by rectal exploration. The distended viscus has not
the firmness nor hardness of impaction or calculus and is mainly
recognizable by its bulk and form. When the distension is in the rectum
it may be easily reached and contents dislodged with the effect of
giving complete relief for the time being.
_Treatment._ Treatment is necessarily mainly palliative and consists in
the removal of abnormal accumulations. From the rectum this can be done
with the hand, or in the smaller animals with the finger. For abnormal
dilatations more anterior, purgatives and mucilaginous injections are
required, with kneading of the bowels through the abdominal walls, or
through the rectum in the larger animals, and stimulation of the
peristalsis by nux vomica, ergot, barium chloride or eserine.
Having unloaded the dilated portion of any undue collection, further
accumulation should be guarded against by giving nutritious food in
small compass, and of a laxative nature, by stimulating peristalsis by
nux vomica or other nerve stimulant and by the daily application of
electricity. Enemata and laxatives should be employed when necessary.