Chronic inflammation of the stomach is not an unfrequent disease among dogs. It is due to a congestion, and a low type of inflammation of the mucous membrane, and is usually combined with disorders of other organs, more especially the liver.

Causation

Chronic gastritis may follow the acute disease. It may also proceed from excesses in eating, or long fasting.

Andral found the stomach inflamed with ulcerations in dogs, destroyed by starvation.

Symptoms

The symptoms of indigestion are present in this disease. Tenderness over the region of the stomach very often exists. Thirst is constant and vomiting distressing. Pain in many cases is prominent.

Diagnosis

To distinguish between indigestion and the disease under consideration is not always easy. In the former the appetite is less impaired, the weight and nutrition better sustained, vomiting, fever, thirst, and pain are less prominent symptoms than in the latter disease.

Prognosis

Recovery is often slow and tedious. Patience, careful nursing, and judicious feeding will aid much the action of medicine and promote the chances of recovery.

Treatment

Much the same treatment should be employed as in indigestion, especially in the matter of diet. Purgatives are to be avoided. If the bowels become constipated an injection of soap-suds will be sufficient. External applications are indicated, and small fly-blisters will be found efficacious. Internally the most valuable remedy is nitrate of silver, and may be combined with opium as follows. -

℞ Argenti Nitratis gr. iv.

Pulveris Opii gr. vi.

Ft. Pil. No. xxiv. Sig. Dose one three times daily.

Bismuth is a most admirable agent in this disease, and may be added to the nitrate of silver as in the following. -

℞ Extract. Hyoscyami gr. xv Argenti Nitratis gr.iv.

Bismuth

Subnitratis ℥ i Ft. Pil. No. xxiv. Sig. Dose one three times daily. Ulceration of the stomach may occur independently of acute inflammation of that organ. When it exists, some symptoms in common with chronic gastritis are present. In gastric ulcer, while hemorrhage may never appear, it is often a manifestation of that affection, and without it an assured diagnosis is impossible. Its cause is problematical; such a wound as a sharp bone produces might terminate in an ulcer.