PERITONITIS IN RUMINANTS. 



Causes : infection, chill, blows, wounds, debility, ill-health. Chauveau's 

 experiment with castration, dystokia, abdominal congestion and inflamma- 

 tion, bile or urine in absence of sepsis, gastric or intestinal ulcer or perfora- 

 tion, foreign bodies, abscesses, surgical wounds. Spoilt marc of beet sugar 

 factories. Symptoms : fever, stiffness, dragging hind limbs, knuckling, 

 arched back, shifting feet, moving tail, tense belly, pendent, fluctuating 

 below, friction sounds, diarrhoea, later constipation, weakness, emaciation, 

 death fourth to twentieth day. Recovery, often partial. After dystokia 

 putrid vaginal discharge, and nervous depression, resembling parturition 

 fever. Infection in ewes through shepherd's hands, cedematous swellings 

 of vulva, perineum and abdomen. Lesions : as in solipeds, with abundant 

 false membranes, foetid pus, metritis, with putrid contents of womb. Treat- 

 ment : saline laxatives, diuretics, demulcents, enemata, morphia, antisep- 

 tics, cold to abdomen. After dystokia, antiseptic irrigation of womb, ele- 

 vation of head, with ice, strychnia, acetanilid. Tubercular peritonitis. 



Causes. As in solipeds infection of the peritoneum and the in- 

 crease of susceptibility by exposure to cold, blows, wounds, poor 

 feeding or stabling, disease and other causes of ill health, operate 

 together in inducing peritonitis. 



The effect of debility or predisposition of the tissues is well 

 shown in Chauveau's experiments with bistournage, in rams. 

 Healthy rams subjected to bistournage showed no infection, and 

 rams subjected to intravenous injection of pus microbes without 

 bistournage showed no infection, whereas if the rams were first 

 subjected to injection of pus microbes, and then to bistournage, 

 peritonitis set in. In the same way chills occurring after dys- 

 tokia, when the womb is charged with microbes and more or less 

 congested, may determine peritonitis, and congestions, impac- 

 tions, tympanies, and other injuries of the gastro-intestinal 

 viscera cooperate with cold to the same end. Rupture of the gall 

 or urinary bladder does not usually cause prompt peritonitis, yet 

 it irritates the serosa and lays it open to infection if the germs 

 should reach it through the circulation. Otherwise the animal 

 suffers only from uraemia or biliary poisoning and may survive 

 one or two weeks. Ruptures of stomach or intestine, or ulcera- 

 tion or the perforation of their walls by hard, pointed or other 

 metallic bodies are causes of peritonitis. The rupture of abscesses 

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