More purulent and more infective through dust, tongues, rubbing posts,
kennels, swill; a class due to different microbes. Prevalence in dogs,
swine, horses, sheep, goats, cats. Symptoms: acute conjunctivitis with
excess of pus, follicular swelling and enlarged lymph bodies in cul de
sac. Diagnosis. Treatment: Astringent and antiseptic lotions, injected
often: silver nitrate: pyoktannin.
The forms of conjunctivitis in which there is an abundant production of
pus are usually relatively more inoculable and therefore more liable to
pass from animal to animal in a casual manner. Infection takes place
through the dried up discharges floating as dust, but more directly by
means of the tongue when the animals lick each other, and through posts
against which they rub the head. Animals smelling or licking the
infected genital organs and then the eyes of their fellows may convey it
readily. Dogs occupying the same kennel successively, contract the
disease (Guilmot). Swine feeding from the same trough and plunging the
face into swill up to the eyes are especially subject to infection. In
speaking of such infections one must be understood to refer to a group
and not to one specific disease, as that will vary with the particular
pus microbe present, and with the virulency of such microbe in the
particular case. In keeping with the greater fertility of microbes in
the warm season, these affections have been more commonly met with in
summer than in winter, and where the animals are kept in filthy
surroundings rather than otherwise. This is above all true of swine.
Möller records a wide spread epizootic of gonorrhœal ophthalmia in dogs
in Berlin and environs in 1883. In different cases, however, he failed
to induce disease in the eyes by direct inoculation with the preputial
secretion. Heinman equally failed with the gonococcus of man in
inoculations on the eyes of rabbits, and dogs. Fröhner, however,
succeeded in infecting the eye of the dog by applying the gonorrhœal
discharge of man.
Infecting inoculable, purulent ophthalmia has been reported in the horse
(Vermast, Sobornow, Blazekowic, Menard, Möller, Leclainche), in sheep
(Repiquet), and in goats (Mathieu). Again Blazekowic found in an
infectious ophthalmia of horses, dogs and cats a microbe which was like
that of malignant œdema.
The _symptoms_ are those of conjunctivitis with especially free
production of pus, and a tendency to chemosis or to follicular
inflammation in the depth of the conjunctival sac, with irregular
swellings of the lymph bodies. The pus accumulates in the inner canthus,
inside the lids and along their margins, and tends to mat them together.
The diagnosis depends on the rapidity and severity of the course of the
malady, on the depth of the congestion and on the profuse suppuration.
_Treatment._ Astringent and antiseptic lotions are especially indicated.
Mercuric chloride (1 ∶ 5000), boric acid (2 ∶ 100), creolin (1 ∶ 100),
salicylic acid (1 ∶ 1000), silver nitrate (1 ∶ 200). It is not however
enough that these should be applied externally; they should be freely
injected under the lids at all points so as to act on the deepest
portions of the conjunctiva, and this should be repeated once or twice
daily. Or they may be applied with a soft brush. In a specially virulent
outbreak silver nitrate (2 ∶ 100) or pyoktannin (1 ∶ 1000) solution may
be used. Setons and blisters, laxatives and cooling diuretics may be
employed as in the severe types of simple conjunctivitis.