Sudden onset, hyperthermia, chill, fever, acid saliva, decubitus, does
not stretch on rising, lameness, joints involved, metastasis,
variability, morning and noon, suppuration, walking on toe, secondary
articular rheumatism. Course: muscular symptoms, cardiac, pleuritic,
digestive. Chronic. Muscular rheumatism: of back, loins, shoulder,
quarter, neck. Changes in blood and nutrition.
There is a sudden attack with constitutional disorder, chill, staring
coat, cold horns and ears, dry muzzle, impaired appetite and rumination,
acid saliva, constipation, thirst, hurried breathing, hard accelerated
pulse and more or less hyperthermia. Then there may come reaction with
surface heat and glow. The patient inclines to lie and when raised fails
to stretch the back or the hind limbs, stands with arched back, and
walks stiffly and with more or less lameness. The joints attacked may be
determined by local strain, compression on concussion, hence the
frequency of lesions of the knees and fetlocks. Yet any of the great
joints of the limbs may suffer,—hip, stifle, hock, shoulder or elbow—or
several may be affected at once. The disease may extend from one joint
to another, may improve in one or more, only to suffer a relapse, and
may oscillate better and worse according to the state of the weather or
the exposure to cold or warmth. Often almost helpless in the early
morning, the patient improves greatly in the heat of the sun.
The affected joint is swollen, distended with liquid, hot and tender
with considerable infiltration of the surrounding tissues, including the
tendons and their synovial sheaths. Suppuration is much more common than
in the same affection of the horse appearing to be due to a complex
infection with pus microbes. In walking in severe cases the foot of the
affected limb is planted with great care and caution mainly on the toe
and there appears to be exquisite suffering when weight is thrown on it,
so that the fetlock and knee may knuckle over and the patient comes to
the ground. Great infiltrations, fibroid, and other hyperplasias and
even calcifications are not uncommon.
Cadeac describes as secondary articular rheumatism, those infective
inflammations of the joints that follow on parturition, abortion,
omphalitis, enteritis, etc., but it is manifest that these are special
disorders due to the presence of the microbes of specific diseases or
their toxins and should be described with these rather than with
rheumatism.
The _course_ of acute rheumatism in the ox is very uncertain. Mild cases
may recover in a few days. In others the lesions become extensive, great
hyperplasia and induration occur around the joint and permanent
stiffness and even anchylosis may supervene. The occurrence of temporary
improvements and relapses is a common feature. The extension of the
disease to other joints, tendinous sheaths, muscles and even internal
organs is to be dreaded. Extreme tenderness of the back and loins when
handled or pinched, with groaning is a marked feature especially in cold
and damp times or in early morning. Cardiac complications show
themselves by shortness of breath, palpitations, hard intermittent,
irregular or unequal pulse, blowing murmur with the first heart sound,
and other signs of circulatory trouble. Pleuritic, pulmonic and
abdominal complications are also to be looked for. The costiveness by
which acute rheumatism is ushered in, becomes complicated by congestion
of stomach and intestine, and impaction of the first and third stomachs,
great dullness, anorexia and even nervous disorder. Colic and even
diarrhœa are occasional consequences.
Many cases subside into a _chronic form_ which shows a variable
condition, better and worse, according to the condition of the weather,
the exposure to cold and damp, and even the changes of diet. This may
last throughout life.