ULCERATIVE (ERYSIPELATOID) INFECTION OF THE LIMBS IN CATTLE AND SHEEP.
New York outbreaks. Causes: wounds by sharp pebbles, streptococci, pure cultures, inoculations. Symptoms: swelling on lower limbs, abscesses, implicating tendons, bones, joints, and under hoof. Prevention: avoid septic or frosted mud, irritants, etc., disinfect surface, keep dry and clean, open abscesses, use disinfectants, separate infected.
This affection was seen in several herds in Oneida Co., N. Y., in the Spring of 1897. The geological formation of the region was a calcareous rock with a surface soil thickly impregnated with pebbles and small flat shaly masses. Sheep suffered in Western New York.
Causes. In Oneida, the subjects were dairy cows, which in the early spring, when the frost went out of the ground, had to wade through chilly soft mud reaching to the knees or above, and mixed with small stones with sharp edges, and with semiliquid manurial products. The abrasions made by these stones furnished convenient infection atria for septic microbes in the manure. In the pus obtained from the ulcers were found in abundance the bacillus coli commune, and a long streptococcus representing on an average from 20 to 40 cocci in a chain. Dr. Moore made pure cultures of these and produced the same symptoms in a cow by injecting the streptococcus subcutaneously in the back of the pastern, and in another animal by simply abrading the surface and rubbing on the streptococcus culture. As the inflammation, suppuration, and resulting ulcers implicated not only the skin but also the subcutaneous connective tissue, the affection had many of the characters of erysipelas.
Symptoms. The affection commenced by swelling in the region of the fetlock, pastern, metacarpus or metatarsus, and exceptionally, the forearm or tibial region, and advanced to a tense swelling, which pitted on pressure, and the formation of centres of suppuration, which burst and discharged. If the exposure to the septic mud were continued the sores ulcerated and extended both in the skin and subcutaneous connective tissue, but when the dry weather came and the mud disappeared, the tendency was to spontaneous recovery. In some instances ulceration extended beneath the hoof threatening its evulsion, and in other cases it extended deeply to the tendons and ligaments.
Treatment. The main object should be prevention, to be secured by protecting the stock against contact with septic mud, and especially such as is near the freezing point and intermixed with such sharp stones and pebbles as would wound the surface and open channels for infection. When infection has taken place we should seek to limit it by lotions of an antiseptic character. Bandages soaked in a solution of hyposulphite of sodium, 1 dr. to the ounce will often succeed. A more potent application is iodized phenol, prepared as follows: tincture of iodine 2 drs., carbolic acid crystals 4 drs., glycerine 1 oz., alcohol 1 oz., water 8 ozs. When applied on a bandage this may be diluted with water to make 1 pint. For circumscribed application to forming sores the undiluted iodized phenol, made of one part each of iodine and carbolic acid crystals, may be applied twice a day with a glass rod. Other favorite applications are a lotion of lead and laudanum; a saturated solution of boric acid; ninety-five per cent. alcohol; a mixture of creolin 1 part, iodoform 4 parts, and lanolin 10 parts; ichthyol and collodion; ichthyol and vaseline; or iodol, iodoform, salicylic acid or resorcin as dusting powders.
Internally, tincture of muriate of iron 3 drms. every three hours helps to keep the affection in check.