Atrophy of a muscle or group would require scrutiny of its tendons and its nerve and blood supply.
More precise indications of injury of the locomotor system must be found under surgery.
After posture, the general or constitutional disorder may claim attention. Is the illness acute or chronic? Is fever present? Has the animal had a rigor? Does the coat stare in patches (along the spine) or generally? Is there perspiration? Is there full, clear, somewhat congested eye (sthenic) or drooping lids over a dull brownish sclerotic (asthenic). Are the lower parts of the limbs and other extremities cold, and the roots of the horns or ears hot? Is there significant heat and dryness of the muzzle (ox), nose (dog), snout (pig), palmar-pad (carnivora), hoof (solidungala, bisulcates), bill and digits (birds)? Has the mouth the hot burning feeling of fever? Finally is the temperature as indicated by the thermometer abnormally high? To estimate this with any degree of certainty one must be well acquainted with the normal temperature.
Normal temperature. As taken indoors under ordinary conditions, the normal temperature taken in the rectum may be: fowl, 107°–110°F.; swine, 103°–106°F.; goat and sheep, 103°–104°F.; ox, 100°–102°F.; dog, 99°–100°F.; horse, 99°–99.6°F. Ranging in the fields, at work, or on forcing or stimulating feeding, it may be 1° higher than when at rest indoors. A whole herd may be raised 2° by a three miles drive in warm weather. In our summer heats a rise of 1° is common. In nervous animals any change in management may raise the temperature, for example, 1° to 2° after failure to water at the usual time, or from retaining the milk in the udder when the milker had been changed. Young animals are normally .5° to 1° warmer than old ones though more sensitive to the action of cold. Half starved animals, when put on abundant and nutritious food may have a rise of 1° or more. Females in heat, in advanced pregnancy and at the time of parturition are usually 1° to 3° above the natural temperature. Among the agencies lowering temperature are: cold, (1° to 2°); sleep, (1° to 2°); rest; starvation; alcoholic and other circulatory stimulants which fill the cutaneous capillaries and thereby cool the whole mass of blood; suppression of insensible perspiration (retention of waste matters) as by varnishing the skin which lowers the temperature to 25°; purgatives and diuretics (1°); certain drugs like antipyrin, acetanilid, etc., which act on the heat producing centres and retard metabolic changes.
Temperature in disease. Comparative temperatures should be taken at the same hours on successive days, bearing in mind that the morning temperature is usually slightly lower and the evening one slightly higher. Where possible both morning and evening temperature should be taken. With elevated temperature, repeat sooner to see that it is not transient. A transient rise of 1° to 2° is unimportant. A permanent rise of 2° or 3° indicates fever. A sudden additional rise of several degrees in the progress of fever is grave. A persistence of the high evening temperature to morning shows aggravation. A persistence of the low morning temperature to the evening bespeaks improvement. A sudden extreme fall to much below the normal (4° or 5°) indicates collapse. This is usually attended with other symptoms of extreme prostration and sinking. A sudden considerable fall to near the normal, without untoward attendant symptoms, may indicate a crisis and a more or less speedy improvement may be hoped for. This sudden fall often attends the period of eruption of certain exanthemata, as cowpox, horsepox, sheeppox, aphthous epizootic, etc. A sudden extensive fall of temperature may result from some transient accidental cause, as a prolonged deep sleep, a hemorrhage, the relief of constipation, or of enuresis. A sudden rise may supervene on such suppressed function or other cause of nervous irritation or on toxin poisoning, but it does not persist more than twelve or twenty-four hours after the cessation of the morbific cause.
A rise of 10° or 12° above the normal standard is usually promptly fatal.
A continued high temperature indicates persistent disease, and a considerable rise during defervescence implies a relapse and in the absence of any error in diet or nursing is grave.
Pulse. Before the introduction of the clinical thermometer, the indications furnished by the pulse were held to be of the highest value. Though largely superseded by the usually more reliable thermometer, yet they should not be discarded, but employed as symptoms corroborative of the thermometric indications. In many cases the pulse will furnish criteria, when in the absence of fever, the heat of the body will tell of nothing amiss. This is especially true of diseases of the heart, the large blood vessels, and of the nervous system, and in cases of poisoning. For special indications furnished by the pulse, see diseases of the heart.
Respirations. The morbid activity or inactivity of the respiration, its modified rythm, the pathological significance of the altered breathing sounds and of the superadded sounds, the indications furnished by percussion, palpation, mensuration, succussion, sneezing, snorting, yawning, cough, moan, grunt, stertor, discharge, etc., afford material of inestimable value to the diagnostician. See under diseases of the chest.
Skin Symptoms. The erection of the hair of carnivora in rage or fear implies a profound nervous disturbance, and a similar erection (staring coat) in the larger herbivora especially, implies a corresponding nervous disorder, due however to a different cause. The pallor and coldness of (white) skin and extremities the retrocession of blood toward the internal organs, the contraction of the involuntary muscles of the hair bulbs, the sense of cold, and the actual shivering all come from the fundamental nervous disorder. The loss of lustre and gloss in the hair and the dryness, rigidity and mobility (mellowness) of the skin imply lack of nutrition. The mellow feeling of the skin under the pressure of the finger, soft and yielding by reason of the lax connection tissue and fatty layer in the thrifty animal, is in marked contrast with the dry, hard, tough, unyielding hide firmly adherent to the parts beneath (hidebound), which denotes the unhealthy or unthrifty animal, or from the thin, attenuated, mobile, bloodless skin of the debilitated subject, the victim of lung, liver, or intestinal worms. In sheep in parallel conditions there is a lack of yolk in the wool, which is dry, lustreless and brittle and often flattened (clapped) on the skin. In fowls ruffling of the plumage indicates the nervous disorder and chill. The skin may be scurfy in conditions of low health or in connection with the presence of vegetable or animal parasites. Ringworm has excessive scurf, and tends usually to a circular form, and to complete shedding of the hair from the spots. The hairs split up before dropping. In acariasis there may be scurf, scab, abrasion and sore of many kinds, but the outline is not necessarily circular, nor strictly limited, isolated hairs remain even on the bare patches, and itching is extreme as shown by the movement of the body and especially of the lips or foot when the part is scratched.