Acute Catarr/ial Gastritis in the Horse. i6r 



pustulous stomatitis and horse pox may develop local foci of in- 

 flammation in tlie stomach. When once started, microbian 

 infection tends to maintain and aggrav^ate it. 



Symptoms. These are very indefinite, depending very much 

 on the complications. Some loss or perversion of appetite, a 

 licking of the soil or walls, eating litter, filth and even manure, a 

 clammy mouth, a redness along the margin of the tongue, eructa- 

 tions or attempts to eructate, or actual vomiting, colicy pains 

 which are usually dull until the bowels are implicated, more or 

 less rumbling in the bowels, sometimes icterus, in other cases 

 tympany, and nearly always tardy passage of hard and scanty 

 mucus-covered faeces. The colics may be intermittent, appearing 

 onl}' just after food is taken, or the}' may be continuous, the 

 animal pawing incessantly hour after hour. A slight hyperther- 

 mia and a distinct tenderness of the epigastrium and left hypo- 

 chondrium to pressure are valuable symptoms. Percussion causes 

 even keener suffering. 



If the gastric contents are abundant and fermentation active, 

 death may ensue from gastric tympany. In other cases, the 

 persistence of colics at the time of feeding, of impaired appetite, 

 constipation and loss of condition are the main symptoms. In 

 the last named cases the patient may die of marasmus. 



Lesions. In cases terminating in fermentation and fatal tympany 

 the stomach is full ; in other types it is empty of all but water, 

 mucus, and perhaps some irritant contents, or decomposed food. 

 The alveolar mucosa of the right sac and above all of the pylorus 

 is red, congested, petechiated, macculated, thickened to double 

 its normal thickness or more, thrown into rugae, and covered with 

 tenacious mucus. This mucus is highly charged with detached 

 epithelial cells, and at different points the mucosa is abraded by 

 their desquamation. The epithelium generally shows swollen, 

 opaque cells. The red congested spots show active engorgement 

 of the capillaries, and this is especially marked around the gland- 

 ular follicles, with more or less formation of embryonic cells. 

 The duodenum is often implicated with similar lesions of the 

 mucosa and its epithelial layers, which may block the orifices of 

 the pancreatic and especially of the biliary duct. In this case 

 there is a yellowish discoloration of the liver, excess of pigment 

 in the hepatic cells, and hemorrhagic spots in the liver and even 

 II 



