BOVINE PIROPLASMOSIS IN FRANCE.
Until recent years it did not seem that piroplasmosis occurred in France. It had been detected in Algeria, although its existence had not been conclusively proved. Mathis claims to have met with it in the department of the Loire in 1896 and in the Ain in consequence of the importation of Algerian cattle, but its ravages were comparatively trifling.
Having good reason to suspect that certain morbid conditions, known as mal de Brou, might be due to piroplasmosis, Lignières endeavoured to verify his theory, and discovered that sometimes, but not often, this disease was mistaken in France for anthrax and mal de Brou. Piroplasmosis in France appears less grave than in America, and is rarely fatal.
As regards its symptoms, it usually develops suddenly with fever, loss of appetite, acceleration of the pulse and respiratory movements, suppression of the milk secretion, and the passage of red hæmoglobinuric urine. In exceptional cases death may occur in from three to five days.
On post-mortem examination a varying number of ticks (Ixodes hexagonus) are found on the skin, the spleen is always increased in size, and the kidneys are black and hæmorrhagic.
The disease transmitted by ticks, as in Texas fever, seems due to the presence of a round parasite, different from the well-known Piroplasma bigeminum.
The elucidation of this disease, which occurs towards the northern frontier of France in the neighbourhood of Maubeuge, calls for further investigation. It never appears to be very fatal, and it attacks more especially animals imported into the infected region. A method of vaccination identical with that used by Lignières against one of the forms of the American disease may perhaps in the future prove available against the disease in France. Until then the best treatment would appear to consist in free subcutaneous injection of saline solution and the administration of evacuants, sulphate of quinine, and laxatives.
OVINE PIROPLASMOSIS.
Causation. The existence in France of this disease has not yet been clearly established, for in the only communication on the subject (by Leblanc in 1899) the writer seems to have confused the toxic hæmoglobinuria produced by feeding on decomposed beet pulp with the parasitic hæmoglobinuria due to piroplasmosis.
In Italy ovine piroplasmosis was described by Bonomo in 1896 under the title of parasitic icteric hæmaturia of sheep. It is said to be due to a parasite of the red blood corpuscles (Amœba sporidium polyphagum), the said parasite being of oval form, very refractile, always occupying an outer position near the free margin of the corpuscle, and sometimes floating freely in the plasma.