Chapter C: F. Dawson, in investigating a wasting disease of well fed Brahma (11)

Pasteur inoculated a calf in the dewlap or behind the elbow, where an enormous engorgement forms, involving the whole ventral aspect, and supplying an almost unlimited amount of serum, which may be collected with such precautions against contamination as are indicated above. The product is thus secured at a comparatively cheap rate, and the risk of its diffusion on the air in breathing is lessened enormously.

Another method is to employ the serum from the swellings in the inoculated tails and carry it on indefinitely from tail to tail.

Arloing in his turn employed the cultures in vitro of his pneumo-bacillus, but with the modern evidence that this is not the infective germ, such cultures can not always be implicitly relied on.

In place of the hypodermic syringe, Australians have used a simple thread soaked in the exudate and drawn through beneath the skin. Others have used a small lancet with a groove hollowed out in the middle of the flat surface of the blade on one side, and which carries in the required drop of the serum.

To preserve the exudate for some time against decomposition, it has been kept on ice, or mixed with chloral hydrate or phenic acid (½ its volume), and glycerine (½ its volume) for two or three months.

_Injection into the veins_ practiced by Burdon-Sanderson has the advantage of producing no local lesion whatever and yet securing a fair measure of immunity. It is, however, a much more delicate operation as it entails a possible though remote possibility of producing capillary thrombi, and some danger of infection of the wound in the vein. To avoid this latter, the jugular vein is raised as for phlebotomy, and a short needle is passed into it. A longer and more delicate needle is now passed through this, and the injection of a few drops of the exudate is made through the latter. The small needle is then carefully withdrawn to be followed a few seconds later by the large.

_Injection of the Sterilized Exudate Subcutem._ In 1881 having found that liquids obtained from old sequestra, produced no local lesions when inoculated subcutem, but secured immunity for the subjects, I inoculated ten susceptible cattle with the fresh pulmonary exudate which had just been heated for 30 minutes to 180° F. No local inflammation nor exudate occurred in any of them, but subsequent inoculations with fresh unsterilized lung plague exudate were resisted in the same way. Six of these immunized cattle were subsequently placed in two infected stables and herds, (Mr. Butts, Brooklyn, N. Y., and Mr. Christopher Slade, White Hall, Baltimore Co., Md.) and retained there for three months without showing the slightest indication of disease. Later I applied the measure on a number of herds with thoroughly satisfactory results. About ten years later a similar resort was had by Arloing and Rossignol with corresponding success.

Two advantages come from this method: 1st, there is no local infection and no marked swelling so that the injection can be made on the side of the neck where the skin is thin, and clean, and the connective tissue abundant, and where there is less risk of extraneous infection than in the too often dirty or filth soaked tail; 2d, as no living germ is introduced there is no possibility of propagating the disease to other neighboring susceptible animals. Two per cent. of loss, of animals inoculated by the Willem’s method is counted on, but with the sterilized virus there is not even a remote probability of loss. Infection cannot occur from the animal injected with the sterilized virus, so that it can be safely applied among cattle that have not been exposed to infection, but which are likely to be in the future, and these injected cattle can be left to mingle with others that have not been injected without a shadow of danger to either.

_Conditions permitting and forbidding Immunization._ Immunization is permissible or commendable in all cases in which lung plague is already widely spread in a land destitute of fences and in which cattle roam at large, and herd mingles freely with herd. Here the extension of the disease is inevitable and continuous and effective measures for extinction are impossible. It is permissible where the plague is widely spread among cultivated and fenced farms, but where no authoritative measures are in force for its extinction. In such case, with the Willem’s system the inoculated herd should be kept thoroughly secluded in premises or well fenced pastures, apart from any highway, and not adjoining any other cattle pasture.

When on the other hand official measures are in force for the extinction of lung plague, every form of immunization based on the production of the pathogenic germ in the living body of the bovine, or even in vitro, is to be unqualifiedly condemned. The risk of the escape of the infection through subtle, unsuspected channels is too great to allow of its reproduction in any form. By restriction of cattle movement, slaughter and disinfection, extinction of lung plague is easy and certain, but, whatever may be true of an individual herd, no country has ever permanently extinguished lung plague infection, when the virus was systematically multiplied for uses in inoculation.

CATTLE PLAGUE.

Synonyms. Definition: infectious fever of polygastrics, with sudden
onset, violent progress, high mortality, congestions of mucosæ,
petechiæ, concretions on buccal and vulvar mucosæ and on skin,
erosions of gastro-intestinal mucosæ, and pulmonary interlobular
emphysema. Historic notes: ancient—China, Hindoostan, Steppes; in
middle ages—Europe, Britain; recent—Europe, England (1714 and 1740),
Scotland (1770), Central Europe (1796–1816), Southern Europe (1827),
Germany (1830–1), Egypt (1841), Britain (1865), France (1870–1), S.
Africa (1881), Abyssinia (1890), Japan (1892), The Phillipines
(1898–9). Animals susceptible: ruminants, peccary, (swine?).
Bacteriology: minute corpuscles in cell nucleus (Semmer, etc.), which
are held back by Berkefeld and Chamberland filter. Accessory causes:
such as favor preservation, multiplication and diffusion of germ.
Susceptibility varies with previous exposure of the race. Immunity
after one attack. All liquids and secretions of the sick are virulent;
also manure, hay, straw, dust, stables, troughs, cars, boats, loading
banks, yards, milk, flesh, fat, sausage cases, hairs, horn, hoofs,
wool, bristles, hides, bones, halters, harness, shafts, poles, goads,
boots, clothes, feet (animals), wheels, runners, vermin, wild animals.
Virulence lost in drying. Manure preserves for weeks. Lost at zero,
and at 131° F. Lesions: congestion, petechiæ, hæmorrhages and erosions
on fourth stomach, small intestine, rectum, vagina and mouth,
emaciation, sunken eyes, diarrhœa, wart-like epidermic elevations,
concretions on mouth; conical papillæ dark, like port wine; petechiæ
and extravasations in subderma and submucosa; swollen intestinal
glands; spleen normal; liver, pale, soft; kidneys swollen, congested,
petechiated, softened; lungs with spots of congestion and
extravasation and emphysema: petechiæ on heart and pericardium: blood
has excess of fibrine and leucocytes, black. Incubation 2 to 9 days.
Symptoms; hyperthermia (104° to 108° F.), white epithelial concretions
on gums, followed by abrasions, congestion of visible mucosæ,
weariness, debility, thirst, constipation followed by diarrhœa, tender
loins, drooping head and ears, weeping eyes, grinding teeth, rapid
pulse, expiration with arrest and click, suppression of milk, relaxed
sphincters. May become aggressive or soporific. Diagnosis: by rapid
and deadly progress, and manifest infection; from _malignant catarrh_
by the active spread, numbers attacked, concretions on mouth, and
known exposure; from _thrush_ by the high fever, contagion to old as
well as young, and severe abdominal symptoms; from _aphthous fever_ by
the high temperature, the absence of distinct vesicles on mouth, teats
and feet, by the comparative immunity of swine, and by its high
mortality; from _dysentery_, by the early hyperthermia, the
concretions in the mouth, by rapid general extension irrespective of
filth and crowding, and by the implication of stomachs and small
intestines, rather than the large; from _gastro-enteritis_, due to
chemical irritants, by the lack of such manifest cause, and its rapid
progress from herd to herd; from _anthrax_, by its rapid spread beyond
an anthrax locality, the buccal and skin concretions and
desquamations, by the insusceptibility of horse, dog, and rodent, by
the absence of splenic enlargement or incoagulable blood. In sheep:
mortality in Steppes, 30 to 50 per cent.; in new countries 90 to 95
per cent. Treatment: to be condemned where its permanence is not
accepted. Serum-therapy: blood serum of immunized animal subcutem.
Prevention by immunization: mixture of virus and bile; inject with
highly immunized and defibrinated blood, and expose to the sick, only
admissible where extinction is despaired of. Exclusion: exclude all
ruminants and their products which come from suspected lands, or admit
on certificate and quarantine, or for slaughter only. Extinctions:
Trace and kill all ruminants that come in proximity to every infected
animal, or to any place or thing where it has been, disinfect
thoroughly the carcasses, products, places and things, register all
ruminants around a wide area of possible infection, make necropsy in
every case of death, appraise and sacrifice any herd showing the
infection. Each seaboard state should provide for instant action by
the Federal Government. Question of extinction in the Philippines.

_Synonyms._ Pestis Bovina, Rinderpest, Magenseuche, Viehpest, Viehseuche, Pockenseuche (German). Pest Bovine, Typhus Contagieuse, Typhus du gros Betail (French). Tifo Bovino (Italian). Dzuma (Polish). Tchouma Reina (Russian). Low peng (belly sickness, China). Pushima (Hind., Burma.).

_Definition._ A contagious fever of polygastric mammals (bovine, ovine, caprine, cervine, exceptionally porcine), characterized by sudden invasion, rapid advance, hyperthermia, great constitutional disorder, congestion and blood extravasations of the mucosæ generally, but especially of the gastric and intestinal, epithelial and epidermic hypertrophy in the form of white concretions or warty-like masses on the mouth, (vulva), and skin, followed by erosions, by pulmonary, interlobular emphysema, by a catching, arrested inspiration, followed by an expiratory moan, and by an early and very high mortality.

_Historic Notes._ As the most rapidly developing and deadly of the cattle plagues, this attracted the greatest attention of people in earlier times, and thus its invasions and ravages can be more satisfactorily identified, than those of the tardier and somewhat less deadly lung plague which usually followed in its wake.

Sanctus Severus and Vegetius Renatus indicate its advent into Western Asia on the borders of the Caspian and Black Seas, coincident with the irruption of the Mongols in the first Christian century. It still prevails in China and adjoining countries, including Hindoostan, and since that date the Steppes near the Black and Caspian Seas have been looked on as the perennial home of the plague. Before 376, A. D., the chronicles of epizoötics in Europe suggest anthrax affections which prevailed widely in man and beast, and since that time the special plagues of cattle come into prominence. At this date the Huns began a great onward movement from the region of the Caspian and Black seas into Dacia (Hungary), Northern Italy, Germany and Gaul, and this was the occasion for a general diffusion of Rinderpest over these countries.

After this date cattle plague spread widely on the occasion of any great European war in which the eastern nations were involved or which was so general or continued as to draw upon Eastern Europe for the supply of the commisariat parks. One great epizoötic culminated in 810 after the wars of Charlemagne; one occurred in 820 in connection with invasion of Hungary by the Franco-German army; one in 1223 to 1225 laid waste Central Europe and is said to have reached Great Britain; in 1233–4 it again gained a wide extension following the invasion by hosts of Mongols from Siberia; great extensions are recorded in Italy in 1616 and 1625 during the 30 years’ war; in 1709 Charles XII wintered with his army in the Ukraine and his return was followed by the most disastrous mortality ever seen in Europe and which lasted from 1710 to 1717. This reached England in 1714 and was there stamped out by killing and burning the sick, disinfecting the buildings and closing up the infected pastures. Paulet claims that Europe lost 1,500,000 head of cattle in the first three years of this invasion. It continued more or less prevalent in the eastern countries of Europe, and, following the course of war, entered Italy in 1735, and extended westward. Again in 1740 in connection with the war of the Austrian Succession it extended westward invading the Western Countries from France to Denmark inclusive, and once more extended into England, where it prevailed until 1756 and caused an unprecedented destruction. It was finally stamped out as on the previous invasion. During this invasion Europe lost 3,000,000 head of cattle (Delafond). In 1770 another invasion of Great Britain occurred through the landing of infected Dutch hay at Portsoy, N. B., but this was quickly suppressed by the destruction of every bovine animal in the infected herds, and the thorough disinfection of premises, supplemented by a daily scrutiny of all cattle within a radius of 18 miles. In the second half of the 18th century cattle plague prevailed more or less generally in all Continental Europe, except Norway, Sweden and the Spanish peninsula, into which no cattle were imported, and carried off 200,000,000 head of cattle (Freidberger and Fröhner). In 1796 to 1816 the cattle plague followed the marches and countermarches of the various armies in connection with the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, causing unheard of losses throughout Europe. In 1827 it spread widely in connection with the war of independence in Greece, and again in 1830–1 a wide extension occurred in connection with the Polish revolution. In 1844 Russia lost 1,000,000 head of cattle. In 1841 a shipment of Roumanian and Anatolian cattle to Alexandria, Egypt, carried the plague and in two years upwards of 350,000 head of Egyptian cattle perished, only a few being left. From this date the great development of manufactures in the Western European nations, and especially in Great Britain, the consequent increasing demand for beef, and the inauguration of rapid transit from Eastern Europe by steamer and rail, introduced an era of the extension of the cattle plague by commerce rather than war, and Röll gives the losses in Austria alone in 1847 to 1864 at 500,000 head. In 1865 a cargo of cattle from Revel on the Baltic, landed the infection at Hull, whence it speedily extended over the entire country, and prevailed for 18 months, but was stamped out by vigorous measures of destruction and disinfection. In all 279,023 head were reported attacked of which 233,629 died or were killed and 40,165 recovered. In 1865 the plague was once more imported into Egypt, this time from the Danubian Principalities. A wide extension took place in the parks of the French and German armies in the war of 1870–1, as many as 43 departments in France having suffered. In 1872 it was imported from Russia into Great Britain but was speedily extirpated, and again in 1877 from Germany when it spread somewhat more widely but was easily suppressed. In 1881 it was introduced into S. Africa in Asiatic cattle during the war in the Transvaal and coming after the long continued prevalence of lung plague it threatened the cattle interests with ruin. In 1890 it reached Abyssinia by cattle sent for the supply of the Italian Army. In 1892 Japan suffered through importation from the main land. The latest extension of cattle plague was in 1898–9 into the Phillipines in the shipments of Asiatic cattle sent for the supply of the American army, and there as elsewhere in unfenced countries it is proving the cause of disastrous losses.

_Animals Susceptible._ In spite of its name—cattle plague, Rinderpest—this affection is not like lung plague peculiar to bovine animals. Yet bovine animals are by far the most susceptible, by them it is mainly propagated, and upon them comes the greatest mortality. Infection, however, extends to all other ruminants,—sheep, goats, deer, elk, antelopes, gazelles, aurochs, yaks, camels, dromedaries, buffaloes, etc. Swine which show a pouch on the left sac of the stomach show a certain susceptibility, it killed the peccaries in the Jardin des Plants, Paris, and Viseur in France and Pluning in Sumatra, claim to have seen cases in the domestic pig. The horse, dog, rabbit, bird, and man are immune.

_Bacteriology._ In a disease with such destructive changes in blood and tissues, bacteria are found, almost of necessity, in the seats of the lesions and even in the blood. No constant microörganism has, however, been isolated, cultivated in artificial cultures, and successfully inoculated on other and susceptible animals. Saweljeff isolated sporulating motile bacilli which break up into micrococci and streptococci, with the cultures of these on agar he produced what he believed to be cattle plague. Metchnikoff found a short bacillus with rounded ends, forming cocci and leptothrix-like threads, non-liquefying, and producing cattle plague in calves. Sacharow found a bacillus 0.25μ to 1.5μ long and Tokishige a very small short bacillus the cultures of which produced rinderpest in cattle. It would seem as if here as in the case of lung plague, the experimenters had retained the real but invisible pathogenic agent in what they took for pure cultures. Semmer attributes the disease to fine corpuscles which have so far eluded current methods of staining and cultivation, and that they exist in the number of from one to six in the enlarged cell nucleus. Nicolle and Adel Bey sustain this position, having found that the unseen virulent germ passed through the more open and thinner Berkefeld filter, but failed to traverse the denser Berkefeld and Chamberland porcelain filters even when favored by a somewhat higher temperature. As this filtration usually removes the germ and renders the liquid noninfecting they hold that the real germ is almost certainly intraleucocytic. When in exceptional cases a few pass through the filter it is held to be only such as were free in the liquid, and these are usually so small in number, that inoculation with the filtrate does not kill, nor always produce appreciable symptoms, but only immunity.

_Accessory Causes._ The essential cause being the germ, accessory causes are of necessity such as contribute to the preservation of that microbe and its introduction into the systems of susceptible animals.

_Susceptibility_ has a powerful influence even in races habitually subject to rinderpest. The highest susceptibility inheres in cattle, and yet the surviving cattle of the Steppe race, which has been exposed to the infection for centuries, mostly recover from the plague, while fresh cattle imported into the Steppes perish almost without exception. Sheep and goats contract the disease but it is more severe and deadly in the latter than in the former animal. Both, however, can carry the infection back to the bovine animal, as can also the whole group of ruminants. The Guinea pig contracts the affection by inoculation and may thus become an indirect means of conveying infection from ox to ox.

_Immunity_ follows a first attack. Calves born of cows that passed through cattle plague during the last months of gestation are usually immune.

_Exposure to infection_ arises in various ways. All of the secretions of the diseased animal are apparently infecting, and the virus possesses great vitality, so that the channels of infection are almost endless. It is carried in the manure, washed on in streams, and drains, dried up on hay, straw, feathers and other light objects, or in dust, and blown about by the winds, left in stables, in feeding and watering troughs, in railroad cars, steamboats, ferry boats, loading banks and yards, it is carried in the fresh milk, flesh, fat, sausage cases, hairs, hoofs, horns, wool and bristles, in hides and bones, in halters and harness, on wagon shafts and poles, on goads, on boots and clothes of men, and the feet of dogs, birds and other animals, on the wheels of vehicles, the runners of sleighs, and by vermin and wild animals. The various infected products, however, soon lose their virulence after drying. Galtier assures us on the basis of the experiments of a Russian Commission, and the experience of France, Belgium, England and other countries that dried or salted hides can be introduced with perfect safety, and that rendered suet, and dried skins, horns, bones and hairs are equally harmless. On stalls, mangers and racks on the other hand, in an obscure and still atmosphere, virulence may be preserved for three months (Müller, Dieckerhoff). Again in litter and manure in the open air, and even in yards and pastures it may retain its vitality for weeks (Chauveau). The infection is destroyed by a temperature of zero, or 131° F. (Semmer).

Whatever determines a movement of animals from an infected locality, determines the extension of the plague, hence war, and commerce, the food demands of a large and encreasing manufacturing population, the inauguration of new routes of rapid transit by steam over land or sea all contribute in their various ways to the extension of rinderpest.

_Lesions._ The most significant feature of the morbid lesions is their concentration on the fourth stomach, small intestine, rectum, oral cavity and vagina. The respiratory apparatus, eyes, skin, muscles, and nervous system suffer to a lesser extent. If the case has gone on to a fatal result there is usually marked emaciation, the natural openings (mouth, nose, eyes, anus) are soiled with morbid discharges (muco-purulent, feculent) the thighs smeared with offensive liquid fæces, and the skin may be yellowish red, or dark, with a general scurfy condition and distinct eruptions, especially of rounded wart-like epidermic concretions on teats and udder. The eyes are deeply sunken, the conjunctiva of a yellowish red, and the lips and muzzle dry, swollen and it may be eroded.

The buccal mucosa is swollen, fœtid, with marked epithelial desquamation and more or less deep and extended erosions on the upper and lower lips, gums, dental pad of the upper jaw, cheeks, hard palate, and root of the tongue. There may still be some of the characteristic, white, epithelial concretions, or the epithelium may hang in loose semi-detached shreds, or there may be extensive areas of abrasion, in transverse cracks or broad patches, and finally extensive petechiæ. The conical papillæ on the cheeks and dorsum of the tongue are especially liable to dark red petechial discolorations.

The subderma and submucosa are also suffused with these congestions and petechiæ, and like the epidermic layer show a marked increase of all elements and of the cell nuclei.

The congestions, petechiæ, desquamations, erosions, are found on the fauces, pharynx, gullet, nasal mucosa, trachea, and bronchia, to a greater or less extent in different cases. There may be even limited areas of superficial necrosis and even the formation of false membranes. In the diseased epidermis and epithelium, in the necrotic plaques and false membranes there are spores and mycelia of fungi and bacterial growths.

In the rumen, reticulum and manifolds, the mucosa and submucosa usually show limited areas of thickening and punctiform or arborescent congestion with softening and even detachment of the epithelium.

The abomasum is profoundly involved, especially in the vicinity of the pylorus. The folds are of a deep blood red or purple, or blackish, port wine hue, or they may be in part brownish red, or when necrotic, slate colored or mottled. The peptic glands are swollen, elevated and dilated, and patches and spots of softened and loosened epithelium are easily detached leaving a deep red surface with, it may be redder oozing points. Ulcerous sores may show on the summits of the folds. The contents are a viscous, fœtid grayish yellow, or reddish liquid, without solid ingesta.

The small intestines show similar lesions, deep, dark red congestions, most intense on the summits of the folds, softened, loosened, ragged patches of epithelium, erosions, ulcers, circumscribed sloughs, casts of the gut formed by desquamating epithelium, and congested, enlarged, and prominent aguimated and solitary glands are more or less in evidence. The contents are liquid and yellowish, grayish or reddish and fœtid. Microscopically the distension of the glands, (of duodenum, Lieberkuhn and Peyer), the proliferation and softening of the epithelium, the enlargement of the nuclei of these and of the cells of the submucosa, and the profusion of microörganisms are marked features.

In the cæcum and colon the lesions are usually less prominent, though swelling, softening and desquamation of the epithelium often exists, and points and patches of congestion, ecchymosis, and necrosis are not uncommon, particularly in the cæcum, and may extend to the muscular layer.

The terminal portion of the rectum is especially liable to marked congestion and blood extravasation, with more or less desquamation and erosion. The summits of the mucous folds are often of a dark red (port wine) hue, and as this is everted and exposed in defecation or later by the relaxation of the sphincter it becomes a marked lesion even in life.

The spleen is normal in strong contrast with anthrax in which similar gross lesions are often found on the mucosæ and especially the rectum.

The liver is usually rather pale and soft, as in other cases of high fever and centres of necrosis may be present. The gall bladder contains a variable amount of thin bile. The pancreas is nearly or quite normal. The lymph glands generally and especially those of the mesentery and abomasum are congested, enlarged and softened.

The kidneys are congested, often petechiated, swollen and softened, with centres of necrosis. The bladder, vagina and uterus show mucous congestion, and thickening uniformly or in spots with muco-purulent secretion.

The lungs show spots of hyperæmia, extravasation and at times hepatization, but a very characteristic lesion is the interlobular emphysema already referred to as connected with the abdominal pain and the sudden arrest of inspiration. This gives a gross appearance of marbling as in lung plague, only in this case the inflated interlobular tissue is dark colored instead of white as in lung plague, and it collapses at once when incised.

The encephalon, medulla and nerves present more or less hyperæmia and even exudation.

The heart is usually pale except in the spots infiltrated by blood, but it may be mottled with petechiæ and particularly on the endocardium. The pericardial fluid is often red. The blood is at first little altered, but later undergoes marked changes, notably an increase of fibrine (50 per cent.) and a decrease of water (as in Asiatic cholera). There is marked leucocytosis, and distortion of the red globules. Before death it becomes black and incoagulable.

The whole capillary system tends to be relaxed and over-distended (congested).

_Incubation._ As seen in England the incubation was from four to five days. Four to nine days are claimed by Galtier as the extremes, yet he quotes incubations apparently as short as 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours respectively. A source of fallacy rests in the prevalence of cattle plague in the district and the possibility of infection through unsuspected channels, before the recognized exposure. Something must also be allowed for the greater susceptibility and the larger dose of the poison which would tend to shorten the incubation. Thus the western improved breeds, which suffer a mortality of 80 to 95 per cent. (Refik Bey), and the winter season, when the virus is concentrated in small ill ventilated houses, both tend to shorten the incubation. At the Albert Veterinary College in 1865, Gerlach went direct from the infected stable to the sound one, and in 48 hours several of the cattle in the latter had a manifest rise of temperature. Roloff observed the elevation of temperature in 36 hours after exposure, and Ranpach and Ravitsch as early as 11 hours after the inoculation.

_Symptoms._ The earliest symptom is abrupt hyperthermia, (104° to 108° F.). This is virtually pathognomonic in a herd or locality in which the disease exists, or in suspected animals presumably coming from an infected region. The temperature usually rises to its height on the third or fourth day, and falls materially when other symptoms are developed. In some instances death supervenes during the high temperature, but in the majority the temperature goes below the normal before death.

Often on the second day, or the third, white epithelial eruptions or concretions appear on the inner sides of the lips, closely resembling the eruption of muguet (thrush) and often showing also on the dental pad of the upper jaw and along the gums of the lower. In connection with the high temperature, which is absent in _thrush_, this symptom is virtually pathognomic. These concretions are more or less abundant in different cases, sometimes so slight as to be easily overlooked, and in other cases encreasing up to the sixth day, and covering not only the lips, dental pad and gums, but extending back over the hard palate, pharynx and gullet. The concretion is as soft as cream cheese, easily detached and leaves a bright red abrasion (not ulcerated) when removed.

By the fourth day there are dry or staring coat, sometimes rigors, sometimes small, accelerated pulse (60 to 120 per minute), some loss of appetite and impairment of rumination, dry muzzle, a general flush of the mucosæ (mouth, vagina, rectum), and deep blood red discoloration of many of the buccal papillæ. There is weariness or debility, the animal remaining down much of the time, also marked thirst, constipation, the fæces covered with mucus or blood, rapidly advancing emaciation, and marked tenderness of the skin, especially of the loins. The head and ears are drooped, saliva drivels, the mouth has a fœtid odor, the eyes weep, and there may be grinding of the teeth. The skin may be hot and the white and delicate parts (udder, teats) suffused by a deep blush. The milk is decreased at first and finally completely dried up.

As the malady advances the belly becomes tender, the constipation is succeeded by diarrhœa with much attendant rumbling, the fæces are at first watery, greenish and acid, and later highly offensive, yellowish brown or gray, and alkaline. These become encreasingly profuse, fœtid and liquid, assuming perhaps a pea soup or rice water consistency before death. The sphincter, at first firm and quickly responsive, finally undergoes permanent relaxation, with constant exposure of the dark red mucosa.

When the disease is fully established the respirations often become highly characteristic. There is not the sudden catching and shortening of the inspiration as in pleurisy, but a sudden closure of the glottis with an audible clicking sound in the course of the expiration, and, after a perceptible interval of holding of the breath, the expiration is resumed with or without an accompanying moan. This phenomenon is so characteristic as to be largely diagnostic. Whether it is due to abdominal pain roused by the sudden forward movement of the diaphragm, or to nervous disorder alone, it is a valuable symptom always to be looked for. It further explains the interlobular emphysema usually met with in the lungs in this disease.

In the more violent cases death supervenes from the sixth to the ninth day, but in the indigenous breeds of Eastern Europe and Asia, which represent a _survival of the fittest_, the great majority suffer mild attacks and recover, and even in newly invaded countries, when the invasion has spent itself and the less susceptible are largely attacked, a fair proportion survive for a longer period and even recover.

In these milder, protracted, or surviving cases the skin symptoms are likely to come out prominently. Chief among these and very constant at the height of the disease is an abundant unctuous exudation which dries on, forming a crust, comparable to what is seen on the skin in the fevers of swine. At different points, notably on the teats, udder, inner sides of the thighs, and arms, and on the neck, lips and face generally, are epidermic concretions having a warty-like appearance, and respectively seated on a very slightly swollen and congested point of the dermis. The deeper layers of these epidermic concretions often soften, so that they have been mistaken for vesicles and pustules, and hence the error by which cattle plague was held to be but a malignant form of cowpox. But these concretions are histologically distinct from vesicles; there is no liquid exudate on the papillary layer raising the epidermis in the form of a little sac, but merely an excessive production of the cuticular cells with abnormally large nuclei, as happens generally to cells in active proliferation, and an admixture with those of spores and mycelium of fungi which have no special significance.

Papules, vesicles and pustules may form on the diseased skin and are described by different authors, but they are not characteristic of the disease as are the epidermic proliferations.

In some rare cases nervous symptoms appear, the animal moves unsteadily without proper sense of balance, it may toss its head and horns as if attacking an enemy or it may sink into a somnolent or comatose condition. Wasting advances rapidly, abortion occurs in pregnant females, the weakness becomes extreme, the animal remains constantly down, unable to rise, rests his head on the ground, breathes heavily and stertorously and perishes with or without convulsions.

_Diagnosis in Cattle._ Individual symptoms of cattle plague may be found in other diseases, but the aggregate symptoms, in a rapidly spreading and fatal affection, and connected with a previous prevalence of the disease in the country or district, or distinct evidence of the introduction of infection should in every case obviate error. The chief diagnostic symptoms are: a sudden, very marked rise of temperature; a congestion or blush of the visible mucosæ generally (mouth, nose, vulva, eyes); the formation of white curd-like epithelial concretions on the inside of the lips, dental pad, or gums of the incisors; the formation of red spots or petechiæ on the mucosæ; later the desquamation of the softened epithelium with the formation of erosions or even ulcers; the wart-like rounded epidermic eruptions on the skin; the great abdominal tenderness with tucking up of the abdomen, and sudden arrest of the expiration with a sharp clicking sound and moan; the fœtid, watery diarrhœa and exposure of the dark red, congested and hæmorrhagic rectal mucosa; the discharge from nose, mouth and eyes; the characteristic fever odor; and the rapid progress of the disease from animal to animal, and to a fatal issue. The rapidly advancing contagion and its fatality in cattle, sheep and goats, together with the immunity of horses, dogs, birds and human beings are important elements in diagnosis.

_Malignant Catarrh of Cattle_ is distinguished by the absence of active contagion, one or two only in a herd being attacked; by the absence of the curd-like concretions on lips, dental pad, and gums; by the involving of the matrix of the frontal horns; by the great congestion, swelling and discharge from the eyes; and by the impossibility or improbability of the cattle plague contagion in the particular locality. In localities where cattle plague actually prevails, it may sometimes be impossible to distinguish at first, and then every precaution should be taken to prevent diffusion of infection in case it should be cattle plague.

_Thrush_ of the mouth, though causing an eruption of the same kind, occurs in sucklings only, is unattended by fever, marked congestion, or severe abdominal symptoms.

_Foot and Mouth Disease_, though equally contagious, and spreading with the same rapidity, is easily distinguished by the very slight hyperthermia, the vesicular character of the mouth and mammary eruption (the cuticle being raised by an abundant clear straw-colored liquid exudate); by the absence, in nearly all cases, of severe abdominal disorder; by the all but constant vesiculation of the interdigital space, and by its mild and non-fatal issue. Swine contract it as readily as cattle and sheep, and horses, dogs, birds and men by inoculation.

_Dysentery_ is marked by the absence of the early, abrupt hyperthermia, though the temperature may rise gradually to a high point; also of the curd-like concretions on the buccal mucosa; by the earlier onset of the fœtid diarrhœa, and by the indisposition to contagious diffusion apart from the confined, foul, crowded buildings. The lesions are mainly on the large intestines while in cattle plague they are on the small intestines, fourth stomach, mouth, throat and skin.

_Gastro-enteritis and Stomatitis_ from corrosive agents and irritant bacteria, can be traced to a definite local cause, do not extend beyond the herd or animal poisoned, and usually occur where the possibility of cattle plague can be excluded. There is usually an entire absence of the white epithelial concretions, of the blush of the mucosæ generally, and of the wart-like epidermic proliferation.

_Anthrax_ of the alimentary tract and rectum is distinguished by the fact that it is largely an enzoötic disease, not spreading widely by simple contact; that it is easily transmissible to horse, dog and man; that it lacks the buccal epithelial concretions and characteristic desquamations and the warty-like skin products; that it shows marked enlargement and engorgement of the spleen; and that the blood and local lesions contain the large sized, square ended anthrax bacillus.

_Diagnosis in Sheep and Goats._ This is based on the same phenomena as in cattle; the sudden and exalted hyperthermia, blush or petechiæ of the visible mucosæ, concretions on the lips, gums and skin, epiphora, salivation, prostration, emaciation and diarrhœa. These last symptoms are, however, less marked than in cattle and the mortality and infectiousness are materially reduced. Pneumonic complications are much more common in sheep.

_Mortality._ Among native cattle in the Steppes the mortality is 30 to 50 per cent. whereas elsewhere it is 90 to 95 per cent. Among sheep in Austria it reached 60 to 66 per cent. Among camels in Asia and Africa the fatality proved as high as among cattle. The Italian buffalo usually recovered after seven days illness.

_Treatment._ The therapeutic treatment of cattle affected with cattle plague has been eminently unsatisfactory and is so certain to become a means of extension of the disease that it is legally prohibited in all countries, in which the plague has not been allowed to become generally diffused. Where it has become general in an unfenced country in which accordingly its permanence is virtually ensured, it may be employed.

_Serum-therapy_ is advocated by Refik Bey. An animal is hyper-immunized by repeated inoculations. His blood is then withdrawn and the serum obtained from it is injected in a dose of 25cc., subcutem, at a temperature of 104° F. The temperature is taken from the 3d to the 5th day and if it does not at this time rise above normal the treatment is ended. If still above normal a second dose of 25cc. is given. It is claimed that the serum is harmless and may be safely given in a single dose of 50cc. in case it is impossible to keep watch of the animal for five days.

_Prevention by Immunization._ Semmer attempted this by inoculating cattle with virus which had been weakened by heat or by passing it through the body of a Guinea pig. The results were, however, far from perfect and even in Russia the method failed of any wide acceptance. Koch and Edington in South Africa practised extensive inoculations with a mixture of the virus in bile. Still better results are claimed by Danyoz, Bordet and Theiler in the Transvaal. These treated the animals by injecting 25cc. to 50cc. of highly immunized blood, defibrinated, and while the subjects were thus rendered temporarily insusceptible, they were exposed to infection by contact with diseased animals.

As with serum-therapy, measures of this kind are only permissible in a country in which cattle plague is already generally diffused, and where there are no fences to limit the continued diffusion of the infection. The preservation of the cattle artificially infected until highly immunized, and again of the sick cattle requisite to give the disease to the cattle operated on, and finally of these last through the mild attacks that are to render them immune, affords an endless number of loopholes for the escape of contagion which would forbid the adoption of the method whenever the extinction of the disease is possible. When on the other hand a disease is already spread universally in a country destitute of fenced enclosures, in which herd mingles with herd in the most perfect freedom, and where accordingly extinction is impossible, the method is admissible and even commendable as a means of reducing the otherwise ruinous mortality.

_Exclusion and Extinction of Cattle Plague._ For countries adjoining lands infected with cattle plague such general measures as the following are imperative: Prohibition of all imports of cattle, sheep and other ruminants, camels and swine from such infected countries, also of the fresh hides and other products of such animals, and of litter, fodder and other things that may have been stored in the buildings with infected cattle or otherwise soiled by them. Prohibition of imports of all cattle or other ruminants from adjacent countries (which may be plague-free), but which animals have been carried in undisinfected cars or boats that had been in previous use for such species of animals drawn from infected countries, or that had been passed through infected countries, yards, buildings, loading banks, chutes, piers, gangways, or other places, or furnished with fodder, halters or appliances from such infected localities. In Eastern Europe the practice is to patrol the frontiers day and night to prevent the smuggling of cattle through from the infected country. Infected animals or herds, that it is sought to pass, are turned back or slaughtered. Sheep from countries that had been previously infected are often admitted on affidavit of the official veterinarian in the country from which they come, that during the three months before they left, there had been no contagious disease of cattle nor sheep in the locality, and on the further condition that they shall be slaughtered at the point of entry, or, if brought by rail, at the nearest slaughter house approached by such railroad after entry. In France, sheep, sent from Russia by sea, in French bottoms, certified as above by the Russian authorities, and accompanied on the voyage by a French veterinarian and certified sound by him, are allowed to circulate freely after three days detention at the port of arrival without evidence of disease.

In the United States the 90 days quarantine of cattle (dated from the time of shipping at the foreign port), and the 15 days for sheep and other ruminants under strict veterinary supervision is safe as regards the importation of cattle plague in live animals. The greatest danger will doubtless come from intercourse with the Phillipines, which were infected with the cattle plague during the recent war. The greatest possible precautions as regards the carriage of cattle on transports or other ships, will be necessary. Not only should no Phillipine cattle be imported, but no vessel, that has carried Phillipine cattle or sheep, should be allowed to take on board home cattle nor other ruminants until it has been thoroughly disinfected.

Cattle or sheep should be rejected when imported on ships which, on the same voyage or a recent one, carried fresh hides or other fresh products of animals, derived from a country in which rinderpest exists.

Hides that are thoroughly dried and salted, those that have been freely exposed for one week to the sun and air, and such as have been treated by active antiseptics, (caustic quicklime, mercuric chloride, lime chloride, formalin, phenic acid, etc.), need be held under no such restriction. The same applies to thoroughly dried, sunned and aired hair, wool, hoofs, horns, bones and sinews. Rendered tallow is equally safe.

_Extinction of Cattle Plague in a Country._ This should never be called for on the American Continent. The introduction of such a deadly disease, with such a short period of incubation, and such severe symptoms and rapid course, would argue a most reprehensible carelessness, which it is to be hoped will never be shown by the Federal Bureau of Animal Industry. Yet under the stress of a great European war this plague invariably overleaps the barriers successfully maintained in time of peace, and the same has happened to the two great English-speaking powers in connection with the wars in South Africa and the Phillipines respectively and therefore it cannot be said that importation is impossible under any possible circumstances.

In case of a recent importation the infection would be easily controlled. Trace at once to its destination every bovine animal and other ruminant that arrived on the infected vessel, and all that came in contact with them since, or with the gangways, wharfs, streets, highways, yards, houses, fields, cars, loading banks and other places and things that might have been contaminated; stop all cattle and sheep traffic or movement for a large area around each centre of possible infection caused by such cattle; remorselessly kill every head of such animals carried by such vessel, or that came in direct contact with them; bury, burn, boil or dissolve in mineral acids, every animal thus exposed; thoroughly disinfect the importing ship, and every house, place or thing the imported stock came in contact with, together with all the dejections and debris, and even the surface of the graves; make a census of all cattle within the different quarantined areas, and hold the owners or custodians responsible, under a heavy penalty, to report every death and every case of illness; whenever the cattle plague is found in a place dispose of the entire herd as has already been done with the infected imported stock, and in a very few weeks the plague can be completely extirpated. The violence of the individual attack, and the very short period of latency, makes the work incomparably easier than the extinction of lung plague. There is never a long period of uncertainty (incubation), there is virtually never a slight or occult case of the disease, there is no equivocal chronic form of the affection. The attack is made boldly and above board, and can be met successfully if met promptly and energetically. The danger in such cases lies, less in the nature of the disease, than in the army of foolish, even if well meaning, meddlers, who denounce the temporary interference of trade, the payment of indemnities to the cattle owners, the interference with private property, the destruction of valuable thoroughbred herds, the interruption of the dairyman’s business, the cost of disinfection, and a thousand other things, and who too often succeed in hampering and delaying action, until the infection has reached and spread over great unfenced territories thereby getting beyond control, or, short of this, has so established itself as to necessitate the outlay of a hundred thousand for every hundred that would have been demanded at first, and a long continued restriction of trade in place of the very transient interruption required by early, sharp, decisive action.

One of the most important prerequisites is that every state, but especially those on the seaboard and with ports of entry, should enact such laws as would make it possible for the Executive to act at a moment’s notice and to call in the help of the Federal Government to make an early and effective application of the only successful remedy. Most things can wait for the call, assembling and action of a legislature; the infection of cattle plague can not. Such laws are not superfluous. If never called for they still show a wise provision against a terrible, though remote, possibility; if really called for and they are not found ready, the great cattle industry and even the agriculture of the continent may be largely sacrificed by the neglect.

As guardian of the interests of The Philippines the United States is to-day called upon to consider the question of exterminating the disease which our interference brought upon the islands. On the unfenced lands of these islands we have to face on a smaller scale the problem of stamping out the plague which has baffled the wisdom of Europe and Asia. The individual islands may perhaps be taken independently, the cattle collected in small herds under fence, and by the sacrifice of a few the remainder of any herd that shows infection may be immunized, and the premises where they are confined disinfected until finally no more cases occur. But whatever method is adopted the seclusion of all within well fenced areas is the most important consideration. No nation has ever succeeded in extirpating this nor any other important infection in animals when they are allowed to run at large and mingle freely, herd with herd, on unfenced land.

PICTOU CATTLE DISEASE. HEPATIC CIRRHOSIS.

This is a fatal affection of cattle met with in the counties of Pictou and Antigonish, Nova Scotia, which seems to make a slow extension from farm to farm, but does not spread widely after the manner of a disease propagated by contagion alone, apart from other concurrent causes.

_Alleged Causes._ E. F. Thayer (1880) tells us that the inhabitants traced its origin to the arrival from Scotland, about 1853, of a ship in earth ballast, containing the seeds of the common ragweed of Europe (Ambrosia Artemisiæfolia), alleging that the trouble extended with the extension of this weed. This plant has a strong odor (it is known in Pictou as “Stinking Willie”), and, like other plants shedding an abundance of odoriferous pollen, has been charged with arousing “hay fever,” but though very common in Europe it has never been charged with producing anything like the Pictou cattle disease. The coincidence of the plant and the disease is manifestly a mere accident. Professor Lawson, of Halifax, investigated the flora of the district but was unable to find any poisonous plant to which the mortality could be attributed. D. McEachran tells us that many farms are covered with the ragweed, so that it is abundant in the hay, yet they are absolutely free from the disease.

The idea of a mineral poison must be dismissed in the same way. Pictou lies on the Silurian formation with abundant coal fields, and the chemical analyses made for McEachran were entirely fruitless of results.

Wyatt Johnston investigated the question of communicability by contagion from animal to animal, but he found that neither contact, nor inoculation produced positive results. Nothing positive has come of investigations into the possible microbiology of the disease. In blood from the jugular vein of a cow suffering from the disease, Thayer and McEachran found bacteria, under an object glass magnifying 600 diameters. Wyatt Johnston, “in a series of pretty exhaustive bacteriological examinations, in which all the tissues, including the blood, the spleen, the kidneys, lungs, and the fluids from the lymph glands” were employed, failed to find any constant or characteristic organism.

Attacks are very rare in winter, the disease usually appearing in the warm summer months, from June to August, and after the animals have been some time at pasture. This might lead to the suspicion of bacteria or other microbe on the growing vegetation; or of some insect enemy which, maturing at that season, transfers the poison from animal or other source to animal; or of some poison, vegetable or mineral, which acts injuriously on the liver, and which can only be had in the pasture. This, however, is mere hypothesis.

Liver affections are common in hot, damp seasons, but Pictou and Antigonish do not differ in climate from other counties in Nova Scotia, and much less do the infecting farms from those adjacent.

McEachran compares the disease to what occurs in the human being during famines, from the ingestion of innutritious and unsuitable agents especially deficient in albuminoids. The Pictou farmers, being nearly all fishermen, neglect the farms during the summer season, so that hay is only cut after the seeds have been shed, and when little nutritive matter is left in the stalks. Almost all the cases he saw were on such neglected farms. Wyatt Johnston, however, found it equally prevalent in overfed animals, so that hepatic disorder from either extreme seems to conduce to it. Again, if caused by lack of nutrition in the hay, winter, rather than summer, ought to be the season of attack and prevalence. Starvation and excess may both favor the attack, but the gradual extension from farm to farm, is strongly suggestive of the presence of a specific cause—probably a living organism.

The limitation of the disease to certain farms and even fields, and the cirrhotic condition of the liver remind one of the Schweinsberg disease of horses, and the lupinosis of sheep, in which the poison is evidently the product of cryptogamic or bacterial growth. With the damp, foggy climate of Nova Scotia, it would not be surprising if it should be ultimately shown that the source of the trouble is in a cryptogam which has as yet only invaded a given limited area. The winter immunity would be explainable on this basis. So also would be the statement of Wyatt Johnston that “When it attacks a new farm it affects chiefly animals that have been on the farm for two or three years. By the end of the second year it kills or attacks 10 per cent., and by the end of the third season it has practically involved all the old cattle which have been allowed to remain on the farm.” The hepatic disorder being a progressive one and probably due to the toxic products of fermentations carried on outside the animal body, a few only would show the morbid results at first, while later, with advancing structural changes in the liver, and an increase of the toxins that cause it, the number of sick animals would steadily increase.