The immediate cause is not known, but without doubt the disease is of microbic origin. Like Lignières, Moussu at one time believed that this disease was very probably identical with that known in Argentina under the names of diarrhœa, entéqué, or bovine pasteurellosis. The hypothesis has not been verified, and Lignières’ treatment, said by him to have succeeded in Argentina, always failed in Moussu’s hand.
Fig. 71.—Appearance of a patient suffering from advanced chronic diarrhœa.
The only point which seems admissible is that this disease, which Moussu considered to have analogies with chronic sporadic dysentery in man, is due to one or several organisms, which develop in the intestine and produce toxins, causing diarrhœa, without, however, marked inflammation of the intestinal mucous membrane.
Symptoms. The onset is often overlooked. The diarrhœa gradually increases without appearing to be very serious; but it persists in varying degrees of intensity. The patients do not appear to suffer, and do not lose their appetite or spirits, but in time the diarrhœa becomes exhausting; they waste, and after some months become excessively thin and poor.
Intestinal peristalsis becomes exaggerated without the existence of colic or tympanites. The evacuations are frequent, and little by little the abdomen retracts, until, in horseman’s parlance, “the belly is up to the back,” even in cows of four, seven, and eight years’ bearing.
The diarrhœa is serous, always fœtid, and without tenesmus.
The fæces may either be very soft or be passed in veritable jets. They are always a little discoloured, and frequently contain grain or undigested forage. They always contain numerous bubbles of gas.
The wasting during later periods of the disease is absolutely characteristic, and different from that of other wasting diseases, such as chronic broncho-pneumonia, tuberculosis, etc. The patients finally become walking skeletons. The red corpuscles of the blood progressively decrease, until the number may fall as low as 800,000 or even 500,000 red corpuscles instead of six millions, the normal figure. The œdema common to wasting conditions appears, and the animals die without suffering, in a condition of absolute exhaustion.
