The treatment is similar to that for the calf. Tepid drinks containing hydrochloric acid, or sulphate of soda (1 lb. to 50 sheep) in the drinking water, has been recommended. Fumigation with sulphurous acid or chlorine may be tried. Small numbers may be treated by swabbing the throat with solution of sodii hyposulphis or weak caustics and antiseptics.
In young and in adult pigs pseudo-membranous pharyngitis is often only a manifestation of pneumo-enteritis. It therefore calls for no special description at this point. No exact investigation of the organisms which produce these forms of pharyngitis with false membrane formation has been made in veterinary surgery. We only know that these diseases are not true diphtheria due to “Klebs’ bacillus.” Treatment should be very energetic from the commencement, but otherwise it differs in no respect from that ordinarily adopted.
Tonics and stimulants, like alcohol, wine, coffee, etc., are indicated.
[The following account of the disease is summarised from Law’s “Veterinary Medicine,” Vol. II.]
“Pseudo-membranous pharyngitis has long been recognised as a contagious disease of swine, attacking especially swine kept in herds or in close, insanitary pens. Young pigs are more liable to attack than older animals, perhaps, owing to the older animals having suffered the disease in early life.
Modern observation shows that pharyngitis with false membranes is common in swine plague, and the present tendency is to refer all such cases to that category. It is, however, altogether probable that the occurrence of local irritation, with the addition of an irritant or septic microbe altogether distinct from that of swine plague or hog cholera, gives rise at times to this exudative angina. Certain it is that septic poisoning with the food is not at all uncommon in the hog, in the absence of these infectious diseases.
Symptoms are those of sore throat, with much prostration, a croaking cough, yellow discharge from nose and mouth, and marked muscular weakness. The tongue, tonsils and soft palate are red, swollen, and studded with patches of false membrane. The identification of swine plague may be made by the history of the outbreak, the number of animals affected, the tendency to pulmonary inflammation, the enlarged lymph glands, the presence of the non-motile bacillus, which does not generate gas in saccharine media, and which readily kills rabbits and pigs with pure cultures of the germ.
Treatment. Isolation, cleansing and disinfection. Locally antiseptics and generally a febrifuge regimen will be advisable.”