INSOLATION.
Insolation is an exceptional accident in animals of the bovine, ovine, or porcine species. If at liberty these animals move about, and always seek shelter when the sun is fierce. If, on the contrary, they are harnessed and kept standing for long, exposed to the full midday sun during June, July or August, they may suffer from insolation.
During the International Cattle Show attached to the Exhibition of 1900 in Paris, a considerable number of cases of insolation occurred in animals of one class, exposed to the full midday sun, in an ill-ventilated spot. The other classes only received sunlight from the sides, and in them not a single case occurred.
Death may follow in a few hours; it is difficult to say precisely how it is brought about, but it is always accompanied by congestion of the cerebro-spinal centres and general blood stasis.
The symptoms of the development of insolation occur very rapidly. In animals of the bovine species there is accelerated respiration, which soon amounts to dyspnœa. The mucous membranes then become cyanotic. The animals attacked seem anxious, although not agitated, and soon afterwards the eyes water, the mucous membrane and the lips of the vulva display œdematus infiltration and congestion, and areas of cutaneous congestion, closely resembling mud fever in the horse, appear over the mammæ. At this stage the animals move with difficulty, and show all the symptoms seen at the outset of gangrenous coryza.
All these symptoms develop in one, two, or three hours, and death may follow if nothing is done. They disappear, however, as rapidly as they appear. In an hour or less we have seen in some cases a complete return to the normal condition. Given the facts, the diagnosis is extremely easy.
Treatment. Treatment should be commenced by immediately removing the animal to a cool, airy, shady place. It may then be bled, and the head and neck should be freely drenched with cold water. The symptoms generally disappear as though by magic.