In France the form seen is almost invariably chronic. The animals appear dull, sluggish, and feeble; they lose appetite, waste, become anæmic, then cachectic, and, after several months, die of exhaustion and wasting, after having shown diarrhœa during the later stages.
The fæces are pasty, and exhale a very marked putrefactive odour. There is little room to doubt that auto-intoxication from resorption of intestinal products is continually going on.
The animal’s general appearance is bad, the ears are pendant, the wool is dry and dull, and can be removed in handfuls by the slightest pull. There are no other external symptoms, and the diagnosis can only be arrived at by discovering the eggs of the parasite in the fæces.
Lesions. Post-mortem examination reveals all the general lesions of advanced cachexia and of gastro-enteritis of varying intensity. The abomasum and first portions of the small intestine usually contain a considerable number of strongyles; tæniae are often present in the intestine, and Moussu declares that he has always found a certain number of hooked worms and œsophagostomes.
The peritoneal, pleuritic, and pericardial exudates common in most wasting conditions are always present, but the quantity of exudate in each cavity varies within wide limits. The liquid may even resemble that due to inflammation or infection; sometimes it is light pink or red in colour.
Pulmonary lesions usually exist. Moussu has almost always found gastric strongylosis associated with pulmonary or tracheo-bronchic strongylosis, but Lignières asserts that the Argentine cases showed nodules of hepatisation which had nothing to do with the pulmonary strongylosis, and which appeared to result from areas of pneumonia produced by the specific cocco-bacillus and other organisms. He has even found abscesses and cavernous spaces in the lung.
Fig. 114.—Wasting due to gastro-intestinal strongylosis.
Pathogeny. According to Lignières the specific agent of pernicious anæmia is a cocco-bacillus which stains well with fuchsin, violet, blue, safranin, etc., but does not take Gram, and which in cultures assumes either the strepto-bacillary form or occurs in barrel-shaped masses. It grows in simple bouillon at 38° C., but better still in peptonised bouillon, which turns turbid for five or six days, afterwards becoming limpid in consequence of the organisms falling to the bottom of the vessel. It does not coagulate milk. On agar the culture is thin, bluish, shows an iridescent reflection, and when old appears whitish. Grown on gelatine, the appearances are similar—the gelatine is not liquefied; on serum the pellicle is scarcely visible.
The organism is said to be pathogenic for guinea-pigs, rabbits, dogs, and, of course, for sheep. Moussu, however, does not consider that the reported cases of transmission through the blood stream or by subcutaneous injection are really convincing or characteristic. He does not question the fact that Lignières discovered a special pathogenic agent in all cases and in all his patients; but what appears to him debatable is the exclusive part which Lignières attributes to that agent.