Vomiting, though a symptom common to many diseases, may be quite natural in some instances, such as over-feeding or during the weaning period, when the mother-cat eats a lot of animal food and then brings it home and vomits it up for her young kittens to feed upon.

The act consists of ejecting the contents of the stomach up through the gullet and then out of the mouth.

The causes of vomition are various : Worms travelling from the bowel into the stomach, emetics, expectorants, poisons, foreign bodies (as hair, cork, pins, etc.); bad or altered food, blood-poisoning, distemper, gastritis, tumours, tuberculosis, jaundice, diseases of the kidneys, etc., may produce it.

It may also occur from parasites in the ear, foreign bodies in the mouth, and as a symptom of brain disease, such as meningitis.

Treatment

This depends upon the cause, which should be removed if possible. When due to foreign bodies or altered food, an emetic (especially the hypodermic injection of 1/40 to 1/20 grain of apomorphine hydrochloride) would most likely remove the source of trouble. If the foreign body cannot be removed by simple means, an operation may be deemed necessary. If due to inflammation of the stomach, bismuth and aerated soda-water are of great value. Ice and cocaine or chloretone are occasionally useful when these have failed. Sometimes it is necessary to wash the stomach out with mild antiseptics. If of nervous origin, a hypodermic injection of 1/12 to 1/8 grain of morphine, or five-minim doses of tincture of opium or bromide of potassium, given by the mouth, may prove successful. When resulting from tumours or tuberculosis, humanity dictates that the lethal chamber should be called into requisition and the animal put out of its misery. Easily assimilable and non - irritating food only should be given for a few days.

Aerated soda-water forms the best drinking fluid.

Gastritis, or inflammation of the stomach, is sometimes called gastric fever, and when of a mild type, gastric catarrh. Its causes are variable. It may be due to altered or decomposed food, distemper, microbes of various kinds, large doses of emetics or aperients, mineral poisons, chills, absorption of dressing applied to the skin, or licking the same off. It is also caused by worms, especially the broad-necked tapeworm (Taenia crassicollis), travelling into the stomach and setting up irritation. Again, diseases of the uterus, liver, kidneys, and other organs give rise to gastritis. It frequently rages as an epizootic, causing considerable mortality in some catteries, especially after cat shows.

Symptoms

The disease is ushered in by sudden vomiting of the food, followed by the repeated rejection of ropy mucus, and then, if the case is severe, this is succeeded by a thin, clear, greenish yellow or bloody fluid ; saliva flows from the mouth, the thirst is great, especially for cold water, which is generally expelled almost as soon as taken ; there is a distressed appearance, restlessness, or a frequent shifting of the posture. As a rule, the animal prefers to lie on its belly full length, with its limbs resting on cold objects.

Pressure on the region of the stomach causes moaning and sometimes vomiting. After the lapse of some time, when a fatal termination is advancing, the eyes appear sunken, the pupils become dilated, the expression is sad, the animal becomes cold and indifferent to his surroundings, the mouth gives off an offensive odour, and the coat is dull, open, and lustreless. The animal dies either in a comatose state or from sudden failure of the heart during a fit of vomiting. Treatment. - If recognised early, an emetic is sometimes very useful in cutting short the complaint. No food or ordinary water should be allowed until twenty-four to forty-eight hours have elapsed since the last vomiting ; but a teaspoonful of Brand's essence of beef jelly and two to four teaspoonfuls of aerated water should be given every four hours. Bismuth subnitrate or carbonate in five-grain doses may be shaken on the tongue an hour before these two latter are administered.

If this means of treatment should prove ineffectual after twenty-four hours, one may conclude that the disease is of a severe type, and in this case one to five minims of the liquid extract of opium in a little mucilage, or chloretone, ½ to 2½ grains, should be given every three hours. Feeding by means of rectal suppositories, or injection of an ounce of milk containing a little common salt, may be attempted. Finally, if this fail, washing out the stomach with borax or boracic acid, or chinosol and warm water, and a hypodermic injection of bullock's or sheep's serum might be tried. In gastric inflammation due to infection the hypodermic injection of quinine hydrochloride or trichloride of iodine will sometimes answer when everything else has failed. Cocaine and orthoform have no advantage over opiates, especially the denarcotised preparations, in soothing the stomach. Ice in small pieces pushed down the throat sometimes answers in assuaging the thirst when the soda-water does not. In the chronic form, doses of 1/8 to ½ grain of calomel or mercury with chalk given with bismuth three times a day are beneficial in many instances.

Enteritis, or inflammation of the intestines or bowels, frequently co-exists with gastritis, and then the disease takes on the term of gastro-enteritis. The causes, like those of gastritis, are various. It may be. due to infection, bad food, drugs, foreign bodies, chills, distemper, intussusception or irritating enemas, etc. There also seems to be a special con' tagious type of this disease which frequently causes great mortality in catteries, especially with kittens. Generally the small intestine forms the seat of the disease, which may in rare cases, however, extend the whole length of the bowel, which is sometimes lined with a croupy or diphtheritic membrane.

The symptoms are restlessness, great pain, frequent crying or moaning, offensive and profuse and frequent diarrhoea, the dejections varying in colour and consistence and frequently containing blood, and sometimes vomiting, especially when the stomach is implicated; thirst is intense, food is refused, the animal is cold, haggard, and depressed; its fur is dull, open, and lustreless, and becomes soiled, giving off an abominable odour. When the abdomen is manipulated, the animal cries or moans from the pain caused. If the pupils are dilated and the expression has an anxious appearance, and emaciation is rapid, a fatal termination may be anticipated.

The treatment varies according to the cause. If the case is seen in the early stage a tea- to a dessert-spoonful of castor-oil containing 1 to 2½ minims of liquid extract of opium may be given at once, to clear out any irritating material from the bowels and also to allay pain and irritation ; or morphine in 1/16 to 1/12 grain doses may be injected under the skin every four hours. Bismuth salicylate, in five-grain doses, should be dropped on the tongue about the same time. Starch enemas containing liquid extract of opium may also be administered. Boiled milk containing bicarbonate of soda should be given in small and repeated quantities.

Turpentine stupes frequently applied to the abdomen are recommended, but, where this is objected to, the floor of the abdomen may be painted with tincture of capsicum, or tincture of iodine, until soreness is produced, the hair being first clipped off.

In those cases of epizootic nature, isolation is called for. The food and surroundings should be changed, and the catteries and utensils thoroughly cleansed and disinfected. In the chronic form a powder composed of bismuth salicylate 2 to 5 grains, and /3-naphthol 1 to 2½ grains, should be shaken on the tongue three times a day. Milk and rice form the best diet.

Diarrhoea, like vomiting, is not a disease of itself, but an expression of many different affections. It may be salutary or otherwise. It may be due to aperients, irritating or indigestible food, microbes, diseases of the bowels, kidneys, and liver. It frequently results from distemper or gastro-enteritis, tuberculosis, intestinal catarrh, and from licking applications put on the skin in the treatment of skin affections. Sour milk, tainted milk or fish, and chills will also induce it. In kittens improper food, especially during hot weather, is a common cause.

The symptoms are a looseness of the dejections from the bowels, which are passed several times a day. The stools vary in colour according to the food taken by the animal, or according to the severity of the cause ; they are generally of a very offensive odour, and may contain blood.

Treatment

If the cause of the diarrhoea is due to irritating food, a dose of castor-oil will be beneficial. When due to catarrh of the bowels, the carbonate, subnitrate, or salicylate of bismuth, in five-grain doses, two or three times a day, is the most appropriate treatment. If it is associated with distemper or typhus, the bismuth salts mentioned above, or tannablin or tannigen, in 2½- to 5-grain doses, are suitable. For chronic diarrhoea, 2½ to 5 grains of salicylate of bismuth, with 1 to 5 grains of β-naphthol, given three times a day on the food, is generally followed by recovery.

Failing this, a mixture composed of dilute sulphuric acid, concentrated infusion of cloves. and concentrated infusion of haematoxylin should be tried.

When the diarrhoea is due to irritation of the so-called large or posterior bowel, injections containing starch, laudanum, and tannic acid should be used.

As long as the diarrhoea lasts, no meat or meat infusions should be given, but milk, rice-pudding, bread and milk, and such-like food are suitable.

Constipation is an impaction of faeces in the hind bowel, and is generally due to weakness of this portion of gut, or results from a cleanly animal having no place to evacuate its faeces in. Sometimes it is due to a ball of fur, and occasionally foreign bodies, such as cat's-meat skewers, being swallowed along with the meat by a greedy animal. When due to paralysis of the bowel, which is occasionally seen in young cats, the abdomen becomes distended by the faeces in the bowel. It also occurs as a symptom of spinal paralysis. The non-passage of faeces seen in cats when not well and not taking solid food must not be confounded with constipation.

The symptoms, as a rule, are the non-passage of faeces for some time, distension of the abdomen, and impaction of the bowel with faeces which can be felt by manipulating the abdomen.

Treatment

A dose of castor-oil and an enema of soapy water or glycerine will generally put matters right. If these means do not succeed, massage or kneading of the bowels, by grasping the abdomen with the hand and alternately compressing and relaxing the grasp, will assist to stimulate the intestines to force on their contents. Of course, this only applies when impaction is due to soft material and not hard foreign bodies, which, in this latter case, should be removed by the fingers or forceps. If any irritation of the mucous membrane, evidenced by frequent straining as if to pass faeces, remains after the bowels have been relieved, an enema of warm salad-oil, containing a few drops of liquid extract of opium, will allay it, and prevent straining. In case of the bowel remaining weakened or paralysed so as to bring about a recurrence of the constipation, pills containing 1/16 grain of the alcoholic extract of nux vomica should be administered morning, noon, and night after food.