Susceptibility. Causes, symptoms, cough, salivation, wheezing,
lachrymation, muzzle dry, tender throat, dysphagia, disturbed
innervation and circulation, hyperthermia. Duration. Abscess.
Treatment, laxative, local treatment, lancing.
Cattle are less subject to sore throat than horses. The skin appears
less sensitive to the influences of cold and heat. The ox is not
subjected to the same severe exertions. It is rarely seen to sweat, the
moisture passing off from the surface as insensible perspiration only.
The disease, however, recognizes the same causes as in the horse, though
these are manifestly less injurious.
_Symptoms._ The disease usually affects at once the larynx and pharynx
so that the symptoms are somewhat modified. In the simplest form there
is only a small, hacking cough, a flow of saliva from the mouth and some
loss of appetite but no fever. In more acute cases the breathing is loud
and wheezing, the cough, soft and rattling, is followed by a free
discharge of mucous from the mouth, the nostrils and eyes are red, the
muzzle dry, the pulse accelerated and full, the throat tender to the
touch, and swallowing difficult, part of the food and drink being
rejected through the nose. If the larynx is chiefly involved the loud
noise in breathing is the predominant symptom and sometimes almost the
only one.
_Course, etc._ The cough and other symptoms are usually moderated with
the access of the abundant secretion on the second or third day, and
recovery is perfect on the eighth to the fifteenth. If abscess results,
to which there is a far greater liability than in the horse, it may not
burst till the twentieth day and the case is correspondingly protracted.
This should be carefully distinguished from the deposits of tubercle
which take place around the throat in cattle. In rare cases the disease
becomes chronic.
_Treatment_ does not differ from that advised for the horse except in
the greater safety of purgatives which must in this case be saline
(Epsom or glauber salts one to two pounds), and in the greater ease with
which local treatment can be applied owing to the shortness of the soft
palate. When abscess forms it must be encouraged by poulticing and
opened with the knife or lancet as soon as it points.