Causes: Accessory, locality, youth, debility, unsuitable food, impure
air, parasitism, contagion. Bacteria. Symptoms: difficult sucking,
frothing, salivation, buccal redness and swelling, white, softened
patches, suppuration, granulation, fœtor, emaciation, debility, bowel
symptoms, respiratory. Duration. Treatment: Artificial feeding,
antisepsis, disinfection, mild caustics, etc.
_Causes._ This has been noticed as an enzootic affection in young and
debilitated animals, while the mature and more robust ones escape.
Anæmic lambs, those that are fed on watery, innutritious materials
(potatoes, grains, waste of sugar factories), those kept in close
confinement, indoors, and those that suffer from distomatosis show the
disease. Impure air, damp, dark places and impure water have their
influence. The disease is manifestly contagious, but the infecting
microbe has not been demonstrated. It was formerly supposed to be the
_oidium albicans_, the fungus of _muguet_, but Neumann demonstrated its
absence, and though he found _leptothrix buccalis_, _bacilli_,
_spirochcæte_ and _micrococci_ he failed to show that any one of these
in pure culture would cause the disease. Rivolta charged it on
_bacterium subtile agnorum_ and Berdt on the _polydesmus exitiosus_
which according to him the sheep contract from eating rape cake. The
withdrawal of the cake led to a rapid recovery.
_Symptoms._ The disease may begin insidiously without at first very
marked symptoms. Sucking is painful and infrequent, an acid froth
collects about the mouth, and white patches appear on the gums or other
part of the buccal mucosa, with at times redness and swelling, and the
separation of the gums from the teeth. The white epithelial patches
soften and are easily detached, leaving bright red patches, which bleed
easily, and tend to extension and coalescence. These are covered by a
viscid mucopurulent matter, and may become the seat of granulations, or
they may involve the subjacent tissues in ulceration causing evulsion of
the teeth, or necrosis of the jaw bone. The odor of the mouth is fœtid.
Prostration and emaciation set in, and often bear a ratio to the
extension of the disease to the digestive and respiratory organs. This
is manifested by uneasy movements of the hind feet, shaking of the tail,
frequent lying down and rising, constipation or diarrhœa: or by cough,
snuffling breathing, swelling of the submaxillary and pharyngeal glands,
and hurried, oppressed breathing. The complication of vesicular and
pustular eruption has been noticed. Death may occur in eight or ten
days, or more commonly recovery ensues.
_Treatment_ must proceed on the same lines as in the calf. Artificial
feeding on gruels, with antiseptic washes for the mouth at each meal are
indicated. Chlorate of potash, chloride of lime, borax, sulphites and
hyposulphites of soda, carbolic acid, and the salts of iron afford an
ample field for selection. For ulcers, a pointed stick of nitrate of
silver, or a solution of muriatic acid in three times its volume of
water, applied by means of a glass rod or pledget of cotton will serve a
good purpose.