In _horse_: spikes of leguminosæ, barley awns. Symptoms: of internal
hemorrhage, pallor, weakness, vertigo, death; jaundice, prostration,
stupor, weakness, crossing of fore limbs, tender right hypochondrium.
In _cattle_: bodies passing from rumen. In _swine_, sand. In _dog_,
sharp bodies from stomach. Treatment: laparotomy.
Foreign bodies are rare in the liver in our domestic animals. _Horse._
St. Cyr has found the spikes of leguminosæ and Megnin the beards of
barley. St. Cyr believed that he traced the passage followed by the
stalk through the walls of the duodenum, and portal vein where it
divided to be distributed through the liver. At the point of supposed
entrance the walls of the vena portæ were thickened and its lumen filled
with clots. The further course of the portal vein and its branches
showed similar thickening and clots, and on the branch leading to the
right lobe was a large abscess containing 4 decilitres of pus. Clots
extended into the splenic, omental and mesenteric veins, and between the
folds of the mesentery of the small intestine were a number of minute
ruptures and blood extravasations.
Megnin found traces of the passage of the barley beards through the
gastric walls and into the substance of the liver close to the portal
fissure. Around the centre where the barbs were implanted there was an
irregular hæmorrhagic extravasation in the liver, and in the abdominal
cavity an effusion of 8 or 10 quarts of blood.
_Symptoms._ In such a case the only definite symptoms are those of
internal hemorrhage, pallor of the mucous membranes, gradually
increasing weakness, vertigo, unsteady gait, and an early death. In more
protracted cases slight jaundice, dullness, prostration, stupor,
drooping of head, ears and eyelids, resting it on the manger or walls,
muscular weakness, crossing of the front limbs, and it may be tenderness
on percussion on the right side of the chest posteriorly. It resembles
the _coma_ or _immobility_ of the horse but the patient backs more
easily.
_Cattle._ In ruminants sharp pointed bodies passing from the rumen will
occasionally penetrate the liver, and give rise to symptoms of hepatic
disorder. Augenheister found in a cow dilatation of the larger bile
ducts, which contained about 10 quarts of sand, that had apparently
entered from the duodenum by the common bile duct which had an orifice
of an inch in diameter.
_Pig._ The gall ducts of a pig’s liver, in the Veterinary College of
Berlin contains a large amount of sand (Gurlt).
_Dog._ The liver is exceptionally perforated by sharp pointed bodies
coming from the stomach. Cadeac and Blanc report three cases of needle
in the liver. Blanc’s case had been killed because of old age; one of
Cadeac’s showed symptoms resembling rabies.
_Treatment_ of these cases would be very hopeless as nothing short of
laparotomy and the removal of the foreign body would promise success.