Читать книгу Special Report on Diseases of the Horse - Charles B. Michener - Страница 55

This disease, sometimes called "bloody flux," is an intestinal disease attended with fever, occasional abdominal pains, and fluid discharges mingled with blood. Discharges in dysentery are coffee colored or bloody, liquid, and very offensive in odor, and passed with much straining. It is rare in the horse, but is sometimes quite prevalent among foals.

Causes.—Probably the most common cause is keeping young horses in particular for a long time on low, wet, marshy pastures, without other feed (a diarrhea of long standing sometimes terminates in dysentery); exposure during cold, wet weather; decomposed feeds; stagnant water that contains large quantities of decomposing vegetable matter; low, damp, and dark stables, particularly if crowded; the existence of some disease, as tuberculosis of the abdominal form. In suckling foals it may come from feeding the dam on irritant feeds or from disease of the udder. In other foals it may be produced by exposure to cold and damp, to irritant feed, or to worms.

Symptoms.—The initial symptom is a chill, which probably escapes notice in the majority of instances. The discharges are offensive and for the most part liquid, although it is common to find lumps of solid fecal matter floating in this liquid portion; shreds of mucous membrane and blood may be passed or the evacuations may be mucopurulent; there is much straining, and, rarely, symptoms of abdominal pain; the subject lies down a great deal; the pulse is quickened and the temperature elevated. Thirst is a prominent symptom. In the adult, death rarely follows under two to three weeks, but in foals the disease may end in death after a few days.

Treatment.—This is most unsatisfactory, and I am inclined to place more dependence upon the care and feed than any medication that may be adopted. First of all the horse must be placed in a dry, warm, yet well-ventilated stable; the skin is to receive attention by frequent rubbings of the surface of the body, with blankets, and bandages to the legs. The water must be pure and given in small quantities; the feed, that which is light and easily digested. Medicinally, give at first a light dose of castor oil, about one-half pint, to which has been added 2 ounces of laudanum. The vegetable or mineral astringents are also to be given. Starch injections containing laudanum often afford great relief. The strength must be kept up by milk punches, eggs, beef tea, oatmeal gruel, etc. In spite of the best care and treatment, however, dysentery is likely to prove fatal. In the case of nurslings, the dam should be placed in a healthy condition or, failing in this, milk should be had from another mare or from a cow.