PREVENTION, SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT 



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Lavage. 



Lavage is a term applied to washing out the stomach with the 

 stomach tube. This process, while an every-day occurrence in 

 human medicine, has been too long neglected in Veterinary practice. 

 Fortunately, new interest has been awakened in this useful proce- 

 dure by Phillips, of St. Louis, who has perfected a tube and demon- 

 strated the practicability of its use. (Amer. Vet. Review, 1904). 



The passage of the tube is chiefly of value in acute indigestion 

 of the horse, with gastric flatulence and distension, where pain and 

 danger of rupture of the organ are averted by permitting escape of 

 gas. By further washing out the stomach in such conditions, and 

 in gastritis and engorgement, toxic, fermenting ingesta are immedi- 

 ately removed and the evil results, as tympanites and local inflam- 

 mation of the stomach and of the intestines, are prevented. In 

 choking, as by oats, the passage of the tube may afford relief, while 

 in poisoning the washing out of the stomach is the one essential 

 treatment. Gastric indigestion and flatulence are shown by colic, 

 distension in the region of the stomach, difficulty in thoracic breath- 

 ing and eructations of gas by the mouth, or attempts at retching and 

 vomiting. 



To pass the tube, the horse may be backed into a stall. The 

 operator stands to the animal's left and an assistant, holding up the 

 horse's head and the distal end of the tube, to the patient's right. 



The tube is placed in warm water and the surface is dusted with 

 powdered slippery elm or smeared with vaseline. The left nostril of 

 the horse is also lubricated in the same way. 



The operator pushes the tube gently along the floor of the left 

 nasal fossa with the left hand, while guiding its direction with the 

 right hand. 



The first obstruction is likely to be met, when the tube has 

 been entered about a foot, by its contact with the turbinates. The 

 point of the tube should then be held downwards, by the pressure of 

 the right forefinger pushed as far as possible into the nostril, while 



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