LYMPHANGITIS SACCHAROMYCOTICA (FARCINOIDES: EPIZOÖTICA:ULCEROSA.) FARCY IN CATTLE.
Geographical distribution and nature: Japan, Northern Europe, France, Guadaloupe; caseating nodules in skin, subcutem, in mucosæ and internal organs. In horse skin nodules, and glandular abscesses, with thick ovoid refrangent bacterium; saccharomyces (Hitt); swellings first local, then multiple, and general, extending along lymph vessels to glands (Hitt); along air-passages to lungs, from prepuce or scrotum to peritoneum (Hitt), or from conjunctiva to other parts in the orbit (Caparini and Ferner). In cattle, multiple, subcutaneous, nodules—hazlenut to walnut, isolated, hard, painless. Suppurate slowly. Same saccharomyces (Tokishige, Nocard). May invade lungs with fatal result in a year. Mallein test gives no reaction. Treatment: actively antiseptic; open, curette, pack with antiseptic gauze, sublimate bandages; internally, tonics, antiseptics.
Horses and cattle in certain countries (Japan, Sweden, Finland, France, Guadaloupe) are subject to a chronic lymphangitis resembling cutaneous glanders, but associated with the development of bacilli or fungi in the nodular, caseating swellings in the skin, subcutem, in mucosæ and in internal organs.
Nocard describes the affection in the horse as characterized by skin nodules (buttons, boils), which burst and discharge a thick, grumous, or thin, oily, yellowish or bloody pus. The surrounding lymph plexus swells up into corded lines, with at intervals nodules or abscesses. The infection extends to and implicates the lymph glands and general pyemia may follow. The thick ovoid refrangent, pathogenic, bacterium stains in Gram’s solution.
In Northern Europe and Asia, Southern Europe and Guadaloupe an analogous affection is described by Rivolta, Claudio-Fermi, Aruch, Tokishige and Nocard and Leclainche. Hitt attributes this to saccharomyces. The infection attacks horses and cattle, entering by sores and abrasions of the skin of the limbs, or under the harness (back, breast, rump, head). Confined at first to the point of infection it becomes multiple, being conveyed from place to place, through the soil, floor, stall, harness, blankets, brushes, combs, straw, etc., and may extend on the mucosæ. The wounds fester, forming pus and crusts over a more or less considerable swelling. In a variable time, (one to twenty weeks) the surrounding lymphatics become swollen and tender (corded), and nodular swellings appear on their course which fluctuate, burst and discharge a whitish or yellowish pus, sometimes oily or slimy. The disease extends along the lymphatics, invading the lymph glands and even the internal organs.
Tokishige describes cases in which it extended along the respiratory mucosa, causing constriction of the nasal passages and larger bronchi, with dyspnœa, and finally, invading the lung. In other cases it spread from the prepuce, or scrotum, upward along the tunica vaginalis, spermatic cord and testicle. Caparini and Ferner describe it in the orbit, affecting the lids, nictitans, conjunctiva and adjacent parts, with nodules and abscesses. Mazzanti describes the case of a filly which died with pea-like nodules on the colon, and ulceration, with dirty, black, purulent centres, and indurated borders. Tokishige describes the affected cattle as showing a vast number of subcutaneous, hard, painless nodules, varying in size from a hazel nut to a walnut and covered by light colored skin. The nodules were isolated and not connected by swollen, beaded lymph vessels. They encrease and suppurate much more slowly than in the horse. In three cows microscopically examined he found apparently the same branching fungus (saccharomyces), as in the horse cases. The mortality is about 10 per cent.
In the farcy of the ox of Guadaloupe there form subcutaneous nodular abscesses, with cordiform swelling of the lymph plexus and trunks, often proving fatal in a year through extension to the lungs. The abscess breaks, discharging a whitish, creamy or caseous, or grumous contents, containing a bacillus (Nocard). The abscesses usually appear under the sternum or belly and later extend to the thighs and legs. In all such cases the mallein test is inoperative.
The treatment of such cases should be actively antiseptic to destroy the germ while still local. After opening and evacuating the abscesses, excise or curette the diseased tissue, or destroy with the actual cautery, pack the cavities with pledgets soaked in tincture of iodine, iodized phenol creolin, lysol, mercuric chloride, zinc chloride, or copper sulphate, or dusted with aristol, iodoform, or iodized starch. The surrounding swelling, if any, may be painted with tincture of iodine, or covered with cloths wet with a sublimate lotion or other antiseptic. Internally, tonics and antiseptics may be given: arsenite of strychnia, quinia, iron or copper sulphate, sulphites or hyposulphites of soda or potash.