Local causes. Debilitation. Polluted air. Poor diet. Symptoms,
gastro-intestinal, fever, lachrymation, turbid aqueous, photophobia,
congestion of mucosæ, generally disturbed circulation, breathing,
depression, heat of forehead, buccal petechiæ, epithelial
desquamation, abrasions, ulcers, abortion, albuminuria, local
swellings, shedding of horns, dropsy, dyspnœa. Lesions, in nasal
mucosa, subcutem, cerebral, dark blood. Prognosis. Treatment,
antiphlogistic, laxative, diuretic, tonic, locally steam, antiseptic,
astringent, trephining.
This disease occurs chiefly in cold damp marshy localities where the
vital power is impaired or in cold situations exposed to severe north
and east winds. In the wet cold seasons of spring and autumn it is
especially prevalent. According to _Rychner_ it rarely attacks old cows
but prevails among young cows and oxen. In the south of France on the
contrary it appears chiefly in the hot season (June and July) and is
attributed to suppressed transpiration. It prevails especially however
in herds kept in small filthy stables, low in the roof, hot, close and
badly aired. (Festal). In New York it appears in cattle on black muck
pastures and in Minnesota on the dried up ponds.
_Symptoms._ Diarrhœa is a common premonitory symptom arising from the
irritation of the intestinal canal as it is soon followed by some degree
of costiveness, the dung becoming dark colored, firm and scanty.
Diarrhœa reappears later. The coat stares or the beast actually shivers;
the head is depressed; the roots of the horns and the forehead are hot;
the eyes are sunken, swollen and red, suffused with tears, turbid in
their anterior chamber (aqueous humor) and intolerant of light; The
muzzle dry and hot; the mouth hot but moist with abundant saliva; the
mucous membranes of the mouth, nose and vagina have a bluish red color;
the pulse is rapid and more or less full or hard; impulse of the heart
weak; the breathing is accelerated, the respiratory sound is heightened
in intensity and a cough is frequent. Temperature 104° to 107° F. The
urine is scanty and high colored. The surface of the body is alternately
hot and cold, and after some time a watery fluid begins to distil from
the nose.
At the end of twenty-four hours the symptoms are intensified or altered.
The eyelids are more swollen and the flow of tears more profuse; the
nasal discharge becomes slimy, and streaked with blood, and
accumulations take place in the frontal sinuses as indicated by the
increasing heat of the forehead and the dullness on percussion. In the
mouth appear dark red spots, from blood extravasation, over which the
epithelium sloughs off leaving raw unhealthy sores. The appetite
entirely fails; dung and urine are passed painfully and with effort, and
abortion frequently takes place in pregnant cows. The urine is
albuminous with cell forms, and casts. The limbs appear rigid and it
pains the animal to move.
From the fourth to the sixth day the ulceration appears on the mucous
membrane of the nose which has often a claret color, and the nasal
discharge becomes again more watery and irritating. The muzzle is
swollen and a dropsical infiltration appears beneath the jaws which
extends along the neck to beneath the thorax and into the limbs.
Portions of the nasal mucous membrane now slough off, and similar
sloughs are often seen on the skin of different parts of the body; the
secreting structures of the horns and hoofs even participating so that
these are easily detached or shed. Saliva flows profusely from the lips,
a fetid watery diarrhœa succeeds the constipation, the dropsy becomes
nearly general and death occurs on the eighth, ninth or tenth day of the
illness. Convulsions and symptoms of suffocation may precede death.
In a _post mortem_ section the principal lesions are found in the nasal
cavities and skin. The areolar tissue in both is the seat of an abundant
serous infiltration, which has taken place into the deeper layers of the
skin as well, rendering it thick, hard and unyielding. Besides the
sloughs and ulcerations on the skin and mucous membranes, false
membranes have been met with, on the lining membrane of the mouth and
air passages. The ulcers in the nose have in many cases reached the
bone, and from the abundant infiltration and softening, the membrane is
easily stripped from the walls of this cavity and of the sinuses. The
general infiltration appears to have reached the brain, which is
described as softened and having an undue amount of liquid in its
cavities. The blood contained in the vessels is dark colored and
numerous patches of extravasation are visible on the mucous and serous
membranes as well as in the interior of organs.
Unless the malady can be controlled in its early stages it usually
proves fatal. Patients that recover after it has been well developed at
times retain its effects in permanent blindness or palsy of the hind
limbs.
_Treatment._ Early and vigorous antiphlogistic measures are strongly
recommended by French and Italian veterinarians. Gellé and Ercolani
advocate the most copious bleedings. Festal insists that all other
measures are useless when this is neglected. Before adopting free
sanguineous depletion the history of his practice was a record of
deaths, whereas later his losses were in cases where from a failure to
recognize the disease at the outset, from the existence of diarrhœa,
from the patient being pregnant or from a fear that the milking
properties might be impaired, bleeding was deferred. He pushed the
bleeding to the extent of causing acceleration of pulse, quickened
breathing and heaving of the flanks, to effect which sixteen pounds had
to be abstracted on an average. If this were done early the engorgement
of the muzzle had usually greatly diminished if not entirely disappeared
in the course of seven or eight hours thereafter. The alleged benefit is
probably largely due to elimination.
Less heroic treatment is now generally adopted. An active purgative (one
and a half pounds Epsom salts) may be given even though apparently
contraindicated by the premonitory diarrhœa, and a further useful
derivation may be obtained by applying active friction or even
stimulating embrocations to the legs.
Steam with or without sulphur dioxide may be inhaled as for ordinary
_coryza_ and cold water or ice kept applied to the forehead.
Nitre in ounce doses daily or liquor of the acetate of ammonia in three
ounce doses may be given after the purging has ceased. Or drachm doses
of hydrochloric acid with bitters may be given thrice a day in at least
a pint of water.
Where the nasal discharge persists after the subsidence of the other
symptoms the sinuse should be trephined in front of the horn, and tepid
water and mild astringent and antiseptic lotions injected until a
healthy action has been established. Change to a dry, well drained
pasture or building is desirable for both treatment and prevention.