CHRONIC CATARRH OF CATTLE.
Catarrh, chronic, summer aggravation, thickened, roughened, mucosa, discharge, twigs in nose. Question of parasitism. Treatment, remove causes, antiseptic astringents.
A remarkable form of chronic catarrh with summer aggravation exists in some of the hilly districts of New York but has not received such study as to enable us to state its true nature.
One or two in a large herd will have a loud snuffling breathing, which may subside so as to be entirely overlooked in winter, but reappears when put to pasture in the spring and continues in a marked form throughout the warm weather and until after the animal is returned to winter quarters. There appears to be little or no fever nor constitutional disturbance except what comes from the obstructed breathing, and the yield of milk may be unchanged. The symptoms would indicate a purely local disease. Yet so few are attacked out of a herd that it cannot be actively contagious.
On close examination the nasal chambers are found to be narrowed, there is manifest thickening of the mucosa, and its surface feels rough and uneven, with miliary elevations. There is of course more or less glairy discharge. If the examination is made about midsummer, the finger introduced into the nose will usually detect the ends of twigs that have been introduced into the cavity and broken off. When withdrawn these may prove individually from four to eight inches long, and some force may be required to extract them. In winter these are often absent, having been apparently dropped one by one. The absence of these sources of irritation sufficiently accounts for the manifest improvement during the colder months. In spite however of the winter remissions the disease tends to a steady advance year by year. While nothing definite is known of its pathology, the occurrence of this disease in given localities, its manifestly local nature, and its persistence when once established would suggest enquiry as to the possible existence of parasitism, bacteridian or otherwise.
Until further discovery treatment can only be of a general nature. Removal of the foreign bodies from the nose, pasturage where there is no brush to replace them, soiling when clean pastures cannot be found, and the use of astringent and antiseptic agents by insufflation or injection would be indicated.