Accessory causes. Infection. Experimental inoculation. Bacillus, grows
on blood serum. Lesions in mouth, nose, air passages, intestines,
digits. Symptoms: difficult sucking, fever, swollen, whitish spots on
buccal mucosa, phagadenic sores, fœtor, symptoms of extending disease,
anorexia, debility, prostration. Duration. Diagnosis from foot and
mouth disease, from actinomycosis, from tuberculosis. Prevention:
cleanliness, antisepsis, segregation, diet of dam, sterilized milk.
Treatment: antiseptic and eliminating: locally antiseptic.
This has been observed at frequent intervals in calves, as a serious,
fatal, communicable disorder occurring in the first few weeks of life.
_Causes._ It has been attributed to unhygienic conditions of the dams,
close, damp, impure stables, unwholesome or spoiled food, and privations
of various kinds, and these, in all probability, increase the
susceptibility. The congestion and traumatism connected with the cutting
of the teeth is another predisposing cause. The ultimate cause is,
however, the contagious element and the disease has been conveyed to
healthy lambs by the introduction into their mouths of the necrotic
products from the diseased subjects (Dammann). Sheep inoculated in the
conjunctiva presented violent conjunctivitis in forty-eight hours.
Inoculated rabbits died of septicæmia. Mice showed the same symptoms as
calves, while guinea pigs showed an abscess only at the seat of
inoculation (Löffler).
The identity of the germ has not been fully demonstrated. Dammann found
a micrococcus, but testimony from the inoculation of its pure cultures
is wanting, and the buccal mucosa of the sucking calf is full of varied
germs some of which are irritating and pathogenic to an injured mucosa.
Löffler found in the epithelial concretions (false membranes) of the
mouth and intestines, a bacillus of half the thickness of the bacillus
of malignant œdema, five times as long as broad and usually connected
with its fellows to form filaments. He failed to obtain cultures of this
in nutrient gelatine, but grew it successfully in blood serum from a
calf. Transferred to fresh serum the culture failed. The pure culture
does not seem to have been tried on the calf.
According to Dammann the lesions occur indiscriminately in the mouth,
the nose, the larynx, trachea, lungs, the intestinal canal and the
interdigital space.
It has been suggested that the mouth of the calf rendered susceptible by
the congestion caused by suction, is infected by licking the previously
infected umbilicus.
_Symptoms._ There are the usual symptoms of indisposition to suck,
salivation, redness of the buccal mucosa, and general indisposition. In
two or three days the mucosa shows raised, pulpy, white or grayish
patches about a line in diameter. These gradually soften and break down
and in four or five days leave dark red angry sores one-sixth to
one-third inch in diameter dotted with grayish points and surrounded by
a congested areola. These exhale an offensive odor and tend to extend in
superficial area and in depth, invading indiscriminately the various
subjacent tissues. The lips may be perforated, the muscles, cartilages,
periosteum, and periodontal membrane invaded, the teeth may be shed, and
the alveoli filled with the offensive debris of ulceration. Swelling of
the throat may follow from implication of the pharynx and its lymph
glands, symptoms of laryngitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia may succeed,
also infective gastritis and enteritis. These various parts may be
infected by the direct transference of the infecting saliva, but the
germ is also held to be transmitted through the blood to implicate
distant organs.
Appetite is gradually lost, a blackish, fœtid diarrhœa, sets in and the
calf is sunk in a profound prostration and debility due partly to the
enforced abstinence and colliquative diarrhœa, but much more to the
absorption of toxic matters. Death may ensue from the sixth to the
twelfth day. In case of recovery a month may be requisite for the
completion of convalescence.
_Diagnosis._ This has to be distinguished especially from aphthous fever
by the absence of the large, and clearly defined vesicles of that
disease, by the fact that the mammary region and interdigital spaces
usually escape, and especially by the immunity of the dam and of other
more mature animals. From actinomycosis of the tongue it is diagnosed by
its more rapid progress, by the marked constitutional depression, and
prostration, and by the absence of the marked induration of the
actinomycotic organ (holzzunge) and by the sulphur yellow pin head-like
nodules of actinomyces. Tuberculosis is rare in the first weeks after
birth in calves, and never makes the rapid progress nor causes the
profound depression of this disorder.
_Prevention._ The first object must be to destroy the infection, and the
second to obviate the susceptibility of the young animal. The clearing
away of all accumulations of litter, filth, and even fodder from the
stable proper, including the stalls where the dams lie, should be
followed by a thorough whitewashing or disinfection, with sulphate of
copper or of iron, or even mercuric chloride, (1:500.) If the disease
has already appeared in a stable the calves should be penned singly to
avoid the possibility of infection through sucking each others navels.
In all cases an antiseptic (tannin, carbolic acid) should be applied to
the navel of the new born. The food of the dam and nurse should be
nutritive and free from any suspicion of mustiness or decomposition, and
when possible the calf should be allowed to draw its own milk from the
teat. When this cannot be allowed, artificial feeding should be
surrounded by all the safeguards, named under acute indigestion of
calves.
_Treatment._ Cadeac strongly recommends ½ oz. common salt daily with the
food, or alcohol ¾ oz., or a strong infusion of coffee mixed with the
milk. Lenglen advises quinoa in the form of tincture, ½ to 1 oz.
McGillivray sulphate of soda. Tincture of chloride of iron 30 drops in
an ounce of water with each meal would be an excellent resort.
_Locally_ antiseptics are our main reliance. Naphthol, naphthalin,
salicylic acid, or salicylate of soda, may be applied directly to the
diseased mucous membrane. Tincture of chloride of iron in water (1:2) is
one of the best agents (James). Carbolic acid 1 drachm in 6 oz. water,
and 1 oz. alcohol has been used safely and with excellent results
(Lenglen). Like most other antiseptics, however, this latter must be
used with caution as regards the amount. No actively poisonous
antiseptic is admissible. The antiseptic should be swabbed over the
whole interior of the mouth after each meal.
In case of deep gangrenous masses excision and antiseptics are demanded.