SPECIAL REPORT ON DISEASES OF CATTLE TEXT

shady and quiet places. If forced to move about, the hind legs are drawn forward with a peculiar, stiff, dragging movement, and there may be slight muscular trembling over all the body, which becomes more intense as the disease progresses. When driven, the animal shows signs of fatigue, ultimately dropping to the ground completely exhausted. Breathing becomes fast and painful, with frequent spasmodic jerks. The pulse is quick and weak and the temperature is 106∞ to 107∞ F. An edematous, doughy, and painful swelling appears at the point of infection. This tumefaction spreads more and more, and crackles on pressure. In case of an open wound, a fetid liquid and frothy discharge is observed. The center of the swelling may appear soft and jellylike, while the margin is tense, hot, and painful. The symptoms increase rapidly, resulting in coma and death. _Lesions._--After death the fat and subcutaneous tissues surrounding the infected area are infiltrated with a yellow gelatinous material containing an orange-colored foam, due to the presence of gas bubbles. The muscles at this point are friable, spongy, and of a uniform brownish tint, dissociated by gas and with a blood-tinged exudate. This gangrenous tissue, when present before death, can be removed without pain to the animal. The intestines are generally normal, but, together with the peritoneum, they may be inflamed, and the lungs are usually the seat of an edema. The spleen, liver, and kidneys retain their normal appearance, in marked contrast with anthrax. _Differential diagnosis._--Unlike blackleg, this disease never appears as an epizootic but in isolated cases. It may also be differentiated from the former by the history of a recent parturition or surgical operation, by the presence of an external injury at the site of the swelling accompanied with a fetid liquid discharge, and the gangrenous appearance of the tumefaction. Man is susceptible to malignant edema, but not to blackleg. Malignant edema may also be easily differentiated from anthrax in that the blood and spleen are normal in appearance, while in the latter disease the blood is dark and of a tarlike consistency, and the spleen appears swollen, injected, and softened. The local tumor in malignant edema contains gas bubbles, which are absent in anthrax swellings. Inoculation experiments of guinea pigs, rabbits, and chickens will also disclose the differences among the above-mentioned three diseases, since all these species are killed by the germ of malignant edema, only the first two species by the anthrax bacillus, while the guinea pig alone will succumb to the blackleg infection. _Treatment._--Treatment is chiefly surgical and consists in laying the infected areas wide open by free incision, followed by a liberal application of a 30 per cent solution of hydrogen dioxid and subsequently a 5 per cent solution of carbolic acid. Usually the disease when observed has advanced to such an extent that medicinal interference is without avail. Preventive treatment is by far the most desirable, and consists, essentially, in a thorough disinfection of all accidental and surgical wounds, the cleansing of the skin, and the exclusion of soil, filth, and bacteria during surgical operations of any nature. Sheds, barns, and stables should receive a thorough application of quicklime or crude carbolic acid wash after all rubbish has been removed and burned. All dead animals should be burned or deeply buried and covered well with quicklime. SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER (TEXAS FEVER, TICK FEVER). [Pls. XLIV-XLIX.] This disease, which is more commonly known as Texas fever, and sometimes as splenetic fever, is a specific fever communicated by cattle which have recently been moved northward from the infected district; it is also contracted by cattle taken into the infected district from other parts of the world. It is characterized by the peculiarity among animal diseases that the animals which disseminate the infection are apparently in good health, while those which sicken and die from it do not, as a rule, infect others. It is accompanied with high fever, greatly enlarged spleen, destruction of the red blood corpuscles, escape of the coloring matter of the blood through the kidneys, giving the urine a deep-red color, with a yellowness of the mucous membranes and fat, which is seen more especially in fat cattle, by a rapid loss of strength, and with fatal results in a large proportion of cases. This disease has various names in different sections of the country where it frequently appears. It is often called Spanish fever, acclimation fever, red water, black water, distemper, murrain, dry murrain, yellow murrain, bloody murrain, Australian tick fever, and tristeza of South America. The earliest accounts we have of this disease date back to 1814, when it was stated by Dr. James Mease, before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, that the cattle from a certain district in South Carolina so certainly disease all others with which they mix in their progress to the North that they are prohibited by the people of Virginia from passing through the State; that these cattle infect others while they themselves are in perfect health, and that cattle from Europe or the interior taken to the vicinity of the sea are attacked by a disease that generally proves fatal. Similar observations have been made in regard to a district in the southern part of the United States. The northern limits of this area are changed yearly as a result of the dissemination or eradication of the cattle tick along the border, but the infected area has gradually decreased, owing to the successful endeavors pushed forward to eliminate the ticks. It was the frequent and severe losses following the driving of cattle from the infected district in Texas into and across the Western States and Territories which led to the disease being denominated Texas fever. It is now known, however, that the infection is not peculiar to Texas or even to the United States, but that it also exists in southern Europe, Central and South America, Australia, South Africa, and the West Indies. When cattle from other sections of the country are taken into the infected district they contract this disease usually during the first summer, and if they are adult animals, particularly milch cows or fat cattle, nearly all die. Calves are much more likely to survive. The disease is one from which immunity is acquired, and therefore calves which recover are not again attacked, as a rule, even after they become adult. When the infection is disseminated beyond the permanently infected district, the roads, pastures, pens, and other inclosures are dangerous for susceptible animals until freezing weather. The infection then disappears, and cattle may be driven over the grounds or kept in the inclosures the succeeding summer and the disease will not reappear. There are some exceptions to this rule in the section just north of the boundary line of the infected district. In this locality the infection sometimes resists the winters, especially if they are mild. In regard to the manner in which the disease is communicated, experience shows that this does not occur by animals coming near or in contact with one another. It is an indirect infection. The cattle from the infected district first infect the pastures, roads, pens, cars, etc., whence the susceptible cattle obtain the virus secondhand. Usually animals do not contract the disease when separated from infected pastures by a fence. If, however, there is any drainage or washing by rains across the line of fence this rule does not hold good. The investigations made by the Bureau of Animal Industry demonstrate that the ticks which adhere to cattle from the infected district are the only known means of conveying the infection to susceptible cattle. The infection is not spread by the saliva, the urine, or the manure of cattle from the infected district. In studying the causation and prevention of this disease, attention must therefore be largely given to the tick, and it now seems apparent that if cattle could be freed from this parasite when leaving the infected district they would not be able to spread the malady. The discovery of the connection of the ticks with the production of the disease has played a very important part in determining the methods that should be adopted in preventing its spread. It established an essential point and indicated many lines of investigation which have yielded and are still likely to yield very important results. _Nature of the disease._--Texas fever is caused by an organism which lives within the red blood corpuscles and breaks them up. It is therefore simply a blood disease. The organism does not belong to the bacteria but to the protozoa. It is not, in other words, a microscopic plant, but it belongs to the lowest forms of the animal kingdom. This very minute organism multiplies very rapidly in the body of the infected animal, and in acute cases causes an enormous destruction of red corpuscles in a few days. How it gets into the red corpuscle it is not possible to state, but it appears that it enters as an exceedingly minute body, probably endowed with motion, and only after it has succeeded in entering the corpuscle does it begin to enlarge. Plate XLV, figure 4, illustrates an early stage of this blood parasite. The red corpuscle contains a very minute, roundish body which is stained blue to bring it into view. The body is, as a rule, situated near the edge of the corpuscle. Figure 5 illustrates an older stage in the growth of the parasite, in fact the largest which has thus far been detected. It will be noticed that there are usually two bodies in a corpuscle. These bodies are in general pear-shaped. The narrow ends are always toward each other when two are present in the same corpuscle. If we bear in mind that the average diameter of the red blood corpuscles of cattle is from 1/4000 to 1/5000 inch, the size of the contained parasite may be at once appreciated by a glance at the figures referred to. The various disease processes which go on in Texas fever, and which we may observe by examining the organs after death, all result from the destruction of the red corpuscles; this destruction may be extremely rapid or slow. When it is rapid we have the acute, usually fatal, type of Texas fever, which is always witnessed in the height of the Texas-fever season, that is, during the latter weeks of August and the early weeks of September. When the destruction of corpuscles is slower, a mild, usually nonfatal, type of the disease is called forth, which is only witnessed late in autumn or more rarely in July and the early part of August. Cases of the mild type occurring thus early usually become acute later and terminate fatally. The acute disease is fatal in most cases, and the fatality is due not so much to the loss of blood corpuscles as to the difficulty which the organs have in getting rid of the waste products arising from this wholesale destruction. How great this may be a simple calculation will serve to illustrate. In a steer weighing 1,000 pounds, the blood in its body weighs about 50 pounds, if we assume that the blood represents one-twentieth of the weight of the body, which is a rather low estimate. According to experimental determination at the bureau station, which consists in counting the number of blood corpuscles in a given quantity of blood from day to day in such an animal, the corpuscles contained in from 5 to 10 pounds of blood may be destroyed within 24 hours. The remains of these corpuscles and the coloring matter in them must be either converted into bile or excreted unchanged. The result of this effort on the part of the liver causes extensive disease of this organ. The bile secreted by the liver cells contains so much solid material that it stagnates in the finest bile canals and chokes these up completely. This in turn interferes with the nutrition of the liver cells and they undergo fatty degeneration and perish. The functions of the liver are thereby completely suspended and death is the result. This enormous destruction of corpuscles takes place to a large extent in the kidneys, where a great number of corpuscles containing the parasites are always found in acute cases. This accounts largely for the blood-colored urine, or red water, which is such a characteristic feature of Texas fever. The corpuscles themselves are not found in the urine; it is the red coloring matter, or hemoglobin, which leaves them when they break up and pass into the urine. _Symptoms._--After a period of exposure to infected soil, which may vary from 13 to 90 days, and which will be more fully discussed under the subject of cattle ticks as bearers of the Texas-fever parasite, the disease first shows itself in dullness, loss of appetite, and a tendency to leave the herd and stand or lie down alone. A few days before these symptoms appear the presence of a high fever may be detected by the clinical thermometer. The temperature rises from a normal of 101∞ to 103∞ F. to 106∞ and 107∞ F. There seems to be little or no change in temperature until recovery or death ensues. The period of high temperature or fever varies considerably. As it indicates the intensity of the disease process going on within, the higher it is the more rapid the fatal end. When it does not rise above 104∞ F. the disease is milder and more prolonged. The bowels are mostly constipated during the fever; toward the end the feces may become softer and rather deeply tinged with bile. The urine shows nothing abnormal during the course of the disease until near the fatal termination, when it may be deeply stained with the coloring matter of the blood. (Hemoglobinuria; see Pl. XLV, fig. 3.) Although this symptom is occasionally observed in animals which recover, yet it may generally be regarded as an indication of approaching death. The pulse and respiration are usually much more rapid than during health. Other symptoms in addition to those mentioned have been described by observers, but they do not seem to be constant, and only those described above are nearly always present. As the end approaches emaciation becomes very marked, the blood is very thin and watery, and the closing of any wound of the skin by clots is retarded. The animal manifests increasing stupor and may lie down much of the time. Signs of delirium have been observed in some cases. Death occurs most frequently in the night. The duration of the disease is very variable. Death may ensue in from three days to several weeks after the beginning of the fever. Those that recover ultimately do so very slowly, owing to the great poverty of the blood in red corpuscles. The flesh is regained but very gradually, and the animal may be subjected to a second, though mild, attack later on in the autumn, which pushes the full recovery onward to the beginning of winter. In the mild type of the disease, which occurs in October and November, symptoms of disease are well-nigh absent. There is little if any fever, and if it were not for loss of flesh and more or less dullness the disease may pass unnoticed, as it undoubtedly does in a majority of cases. If, however, the blood corpuscles are counted from time to time a gradually diminishing number will be found, and after several weeks only about one-fifth or one-sixth of the normal number are present. It is indeed surprising how little impression upon the animal this very impoverished condition of the blood appears to make. It is probable, however, that if two animals kept under the same conditions, one healthy and the other at the end of one of these mild attacks, are weighed, the difference would be plainly shown. _Pathological changes observable after death._--In the preceding pages some of these have already been referred to in describing the nature of the disease. It is very important at times to determine whether a certain disease is Texas fever or some other disease, like anthrax, for example. This fact can, as a rule, be determined at once by a thorough microscopic examination of the blood. The necessary apparatus and the requisite qualifications for this task leave this method entirely in the hands of experts. There are, however, a considerable number of changes caused by this disease which may be detected by the naked eye when the body has been opened. Put together they make a mistake quite impossible. The presence of small ticks on the skin of the escutcheon, the thighs, and the udder is a very important sign in herds north of the Texas-fever line, as it indicates that they have been brought in some manner from the South and have carried the disease with them, as will be explained later. Another very important sign is the thin, watery condition of the blood, either just before death or when the fever has been present for four or five days. A little incision into the skin will enable any one to determine this point. Frequently the skin is so poor in blood that it may require several incisions to draw a drop or more. The changes in the internal organs, as found on post-mortem examinations, are briefly as follows: The spleen, or milt, is much larger than in healthy animals. It may weigh three or four times as much. When it is incised the contents or pulp is blackish (see Pl. XLIV, fig. 1), and may even well out as a disintegrated mass. The markings of the healthy spleen (fig. 2) are all effaced by the enormous number of blood corpuscles which have collected in it, and to which the enlargement is attributable. Next to the spleen the liver will arouse our attention. (See Pl. XLV, fig. 2.) It is larger than in the healthy state, has lost its natural brownish color (fig. 1), and now has on the surface a paler, yellowish hue. When it is incised this yellowish tinge, or mahogany color, as it has been called by some, is still more prominent. This is owing to the large quantity of bile in the finest bile capillaries, and as these are not uniformly filled with it the cut surface has a more or less mottled appearance. This bile injection causes in many cases a fatty degeneration of the liver cells, which makes the organ appear still lighter in color. In all cases the gall bladder should be examined. This is distended with bile, which holds in suspension a large number of yellow flakes, so that when it is poured into a tall bottle to settle fully one-half or more of the column of fluid will be occupied by a layer of flakes. If mucus is present at the same time, the bile may become so viscid that when it is poured from one glass to another it forms long bands. The bile in health is a limpid fluid, containing no solid particles. If the animal during life has not been observed to pass urine colored with blood or red water, the bladder should be opened. This quite invariably, in acute cases, contains urine which varies in color from a deep port wine to a light claret. In many cases the color is so dense that light will not pass through even a thin layer. (Pl. XLV, fig. 3.) The kidneys are always found congested in the acute attack. The disease exerts but little effect on the stomach and intestines beyond more or less reddening of the mucous membrane; hence an examination of them may be safely omitted. The lungs are, as a rule, not diseased. The heart usually shows patches of blood extravasation on the inside (left ventricle) and less markedly on the outer surface. We have observed jaundice of the various tissues but very rarely. It has been observed by some quite regularly, however. During the hot season about 90 per cent of the susceptible mature animals from a noninfected district die, but later, in the cool weather, the disease assumes a milder type, with a consequent decrease in the number of deaths. _The cattle tick, Margaropus annulatus, as the carrier of Texas fever._