Synonyms. Causes: microbes, maturity, hard work, chill, poor hygiene,
drying of damp lands in summer and autumn, impermeable soils, corrupt
water, bacillus, diplococcus; resemblance to hæmorrhagic septicæmia.
Lesions: petechiæ and hæmorrhages on mucosæ, serosæ and skin;
gelatinoid exudates gravitating to the lowest parts of face, chest,
belly and legs; chaps, oozing, sloughs, depilation, exudate in tongue,
bloody diarrhœa, duration 14 to 40 days, mortality light; indurations.
Diagnosis: from anthrax, black quarter, malignant œdema and acute
hæmorrhagic septicæmia. Prevention: avoid infecting soils in summer
and autumn; drainage, cultivation; chills. Treatment: venesection:
laxatives, diuretics: intratracheal injections of iodine: colloidal
silver. Locally: antiseptic astringents: remove eschars: facilitate
breathing by surgical or mechanical means: good hygiene.
_Synonyms._ Purpura Hæmorrhagica. Anasarca. Inflammatory Œdema. Yellow
Water. Morbus Maculosus.
This malady presents phenomena very similar to those found in the horse,
and shows itself in mild and severe types. It has been noted by writers
on diseases of cattle from Vegetius down, though under quite a variety
of names.
_Causes._ These are uncertain, though much seems to point to microbian
invasion or intoxication by microbian poisons. In France, it has been
seen mainly in mature and robust working oxen after a hard day’s work,
when the animal has had time to cool off. Also in cows used in the yoke
and milked at the same time. Poor food, starvation and low condition
have also been cited as causes. In other cases, high feeding and
plethora have been incriminated. It shows itself most commonly in summer
and autumn, so that cold or chill must be looked on as a cause secondary
to another—probably microbian or toxic. Again, it is by far the most
common in the adult animal. What is more suggestive is its relative
frequency in localities characterized by swamps, springy fields, hollow
basins, damp hill-foots, bottom lands, and damp, impermeable or
undrained soils. Again, on heavy clays where the water is preserved
through summer in open ponds and often in a very corrupt condition. This
at once accounts for its common appearance in summer and autumn when the
offensive products of fermentation are most abundant, and corroborates
the doctrine of a toxic ferment. But its origin has not been definitely
traced to such products as yet. This, notwithstanding that Kolb
attributes it to _bacillus hæmorrhagicus_, and Robert, Fabert, and
Dinter found the exudates swarming with _diplococci_. This may
assimilate it to _septicæmia_ hæmorrhagica.
_Lesions._ In cattle killed during the early stages, circumscribed
hæmorrhages and petechiæ are found in the nose, trachea, bronchia,
gastric and intestinal mucosæ, cerebral membranes, pleuræ, peritoneum,
bladder, and skin. In many cases these are accompanied by congestion and
thickening of the walls of the lymphatics, and effusion in and under the
skin in different parts of the body, but especially along its lower
aspect—(belly, sternum, dewlap, limbs, lower jaw, tongue)—of a
gelatinoid exudate, which raises the skin abruptly in the form of a
thick cushion. At first this is soft and tremulous, but later it may
have coagulated giving a great degree of resistance to the structure.
Extensive cracks, fissures, and sloughs, and unhealthy sores form on
these swellings. Franck especially notes the enlarged tongue gorged with
blood and yellowish exudate as in gloss-anthrax. The blood extravasation
may be further evidenced in the black or blood-streaked fæces, the
reddish urine, and a rosy tint of the milk.
_Symptoms._ The animal is dull, sluggish, moves stiffly and with
difficulty, and shows hyperthermia, (102° to 106° F.), inappetence,
impaired or suspended rumination, heat of the roots of the ears and
horns, and of the dry muzzle; the spine, and usually certain points
beneath the sternum or abdomen at which swellings are about to appear,
are tender to the touch. On the affected parts of the skin the
temperature is raised, and there may be detected pea-like elevations
which become surrounded and enveloped in extensive swellings that pit on
pressure. The swellings show a preference for the thinner and looser
parts of the skin, and gravitate rapidly toward dependent parts. Thus,
the eyelids, roots of the ears, intermaxillary space, throat, muzzle,
dewlap, ventral aspect of the body, axilla, mammæ, scrotum, groin,
thigh, knee and hock are favorite spots, the liquid rapidly gravitating
downward through the loose connective tissue to the lowest points. The
face becomes infiltrated to unsightly dimensions, interrupting
prehension and threatening suffocation, the dewlap swells up to a great
size, the forearms or thighs become rounded and tense, and a thick pad
forms along the ventral aspect of the body. The white skin on such
swellings becomes red, they may ooze a yellowish liquid or blood, the
surface becomes depilated, scaly and rough, chaps and cracks appear,
going on, it may be, to deep fissures, more particularly at the flexures
of the joints, on the throat or muzzle, or on other points that are
subjected to pressure. Necrosis of great patches of skin is not
uncommon, and these sloughing off leave large wounds with unhealthy,
indolent surface and little disposed to rapid healing.
The petechiæ show early on the muzzle, the nasal and buccal mucosæ, and
on other mucous membranes. Exudations also appear and a serous, often
bloody, discharge escapes from the nose and concretes in colored
encrustations around the nostrils. The nose may be obstructed causing
the animal to breathe through the open mouth, protruding the tongue
which is often also the seat of extensive swelling, discoloration and
induration.
As the disease advances there is encreased dullness and prostration,
marked emaciation, and anæmia, sunken eyes, encrusted eyelids, extensive
areas of depilation including even the long hairs of the tail, and quite
often an abundant bloody diarrhœa.
The affection may last for 24 to 40 days and under rational treatment
the majority survive. There remains, however, in a certain number of
cases, a permanent enlargement and fibrous induration from the
organization of the exudate.
_Diagnosis._ A fully developed case is easily recognized. The fever and
constitutional disorder, complicated by petechiæ on the mucosæ and skin;
the extensive swellings suddenly formed, oozing serum or blood, and
tending to fissures and necrosis; and the discharge of blood from the
nose, bowels, kidneys and udder, in the absence of the bacilli of
anthrax, emphysematous anthrax, malignant œdema, and wildeseuche; the
slower progress; the low mortality; the occurrence on a damp, springy,
or impermeable soil, or one known to produce this disease; and
especially if in late summer or autumn, become virtually pathognomonic.
_Prevention._ Seclude cattle in late summer and autumn especially, from
soils known to be productive of this affection and above all from damp
wet clays, underlaid by hardpan, from swamps, from drying up ponds and
basins, from wet river bottoms and deltas and from springy fields
generally. Fields of this kind may be reserved for cultivated crops or
for raising hay. The fundamental remedy is thorough drainage, and a
subsequent abandonment of the land for a year or two to other crops to
allow of a dissipation of the poison. Sudden chills after being heated
or fatigued, and exposure in the pasture in cold nights are to be
avoided.
_Treatment._ The French writers up to the present extol bleeding for the
early stages. Its benefit must apparently depend on the diminution of
the blood tension allowing the distended capillaries to resume their
normal contractility, and in the lessening of the tendency to exosmosis,
and the encrease of endosmosis so that much of the poison in the blood
is removed and what remains is largely diluted and rendered
comparatively harmless. However well this may operate in the strong and
plethoric, it cannot be considered as applicable to the weak or anæmic,
nor to advanced cases in which the vital powers are already seriously
reduced by the abundant exudations and extravasations, and by the
narcotic and devitalizing action of the circulating toxins.
With us the demand is usually met by laxatives and diuretics, under the
idea that these are less debilitating and that if the morbid process can
be arrested recovery is more prompt and perfect. A purge of sulphate of
soda is followed by full doses of nitrate or acetate of potash, in
combination with iodide of potassium, or chlorate of potash; or
bicarbonate of soda associated with hyposulphite of soda. These or other
diuretics should be pushed so as to produce free diuresis. Stimulating
antiseptic diuretics like ol. terebinth, may be added. Iodine solutions
injected into the trachea have been recommended as for the horse (Huber,
Heuberger, Rohr,) and the serum or silver preparations or adrenalin may
be tried.
_Locally_ astringents and antiseptics have given good results. Solutions
of alum or lead acetate with carbolic acid and iodine; frictions with
soap liniment, with a mixture of aqua ammonia, oil of turpentine and
oil, or with mixtures of oils of origanum, cajeput and peppermint, and
iodine, or simple painting with tinct. of iodine may be cited. Fissures
and open sores may be dressed with mercuric chloride solutions (1:1000),
Lugol’s solution, phenic acid lotion, solution of creolin, lysol, or
chloronaphtholeum, camphorated spirit, or other antiseptic agent. The
nose should be injected, cleared of eschars, and if necessary propped
open.
An abundant, wholesome, easily digested diet, pure air, a dry stall and
protection against cold are essential.