Prevalence in herds, in close pens, and in young. Relation to swine
plague and hog cholera. Symptoms: sore throat, prostration, hoarse
cough, yellowish discharge with shreds of false membrane, pellicles on
mouth, fauces, tonsils. Diagnosis from swine plague. Treatment:
Isolation, disinfection, antisepsis to throat, febrifuges.
This has long been recognized as a contagious affection, occurring
especially where the animals were kept in herds and too often in close
and filthy pens. These are more liable in youth than in maturity, partly
no doubt because the older animals have already suffered and attained to
an immunity. Modern observation has shown that pharyngitis with
formation of false membranes is especially common in swine plague, and
the present tendency is to refer all such cases to that category. It is
however altogether probable that the occurrence of local irritation with
the addition of an irritant or septic microbe altogether distinct from
those of swine plague or hog cholera, gives rise at times to this
exudative angina. Certain it is that septic poisoning with the food is
not at all uncommon in the hog, in the absence of these infectious
diseases.
The _symptoms_ are those of severe sore throat with profound
prostration, a hoarse, painful cough, a yellowish discharge from nose
and mouth, and great muscular weakness. The base of the tongue, tonsils
and soft palate are red and tumid with here and there grayish or
yellowish patches of false membranes. The identification of swine plague
may be made by the history of the outbreak, the number of animals
affected, the tendency to pulmonary inflammation, the enlarged lymph
glands, the presence of the non-motile bacillus which does not generate
gas in saccharine media, and which readily kills rabbits and Guinea-pigs
with pure cultures of the germ.
_Treatment_ will depend largely on the nature of the attack—swine plague
or simple pseudomembranous infection. Isolation, cleansing and
disinfection will be demanded in both cases. In swine plague all
additional precautions to prevent its spread must be resorted to. In the
simpler exudative inflammations the antiseptic local treatment and
general febrifuge measures will be demanded.