Relation to diphtheria in man and horse. Symptoms; fever, prostration; swollen throat; cough; vomiting; false membranes on fauces and tonsils; cyanosis. Treatment: local antisepsis; febrifuges.
Rossi and Nicholski claim that dogs contract diphtheria by swallowing the excrements of diphtheritic infants, but these observations lack confirmation, and the infrequency of such an occurrence argues against it. Robertson records cases of canine angina with false membranes occurring at the same time as a similar affection in the horse. The victims were puppies and the mortality was high. Exact observations are, however, lacking.
The symptoms were dullness, prostration, anorexia, a hard cough, swollen throat, vomiting, diarrhœa, and the presence of grayish or yellowish false membranes on the fauces and tonsils. The breathing was difficult and painful and the mucosæ cyanotic.
Treatment has been essentially local, consisting of swabbing with solution of boric acid (1:200), chlorate of potassa, perchloride of iron, or nitrate of silver.
PSEUDOMEMBRANOUS STOMATITIS OF PIGEONS AND CHICKENS.
Contagious and destructive nature of the disease. Mode of extension from the mouth and pharynx. Causes: bacillus diphtheriæ columbarum; its characters: pathogenesis to birds, mice, rabbits, Guinea pigs; dogs, rats, and cattle immune; diagnosis from bacillus diphtheriæ. American disease. Incubation. Symptoms: prostration; wheezing breathing; sneezing; difficult deglutition; false membrane on fauces; necrotic changes in mucosa; perforations; lesions of internal organs; blood infection; nostrils stuffed; bill gapes; lesions on eye, tongue, gullet, crop, intestine; diarrhœa; vomiting. Skin lesions. Course, acute, chronic. Paralysis. Mortality. Prognosis. Diagnosis from coccidiosis, from croupous angina of Rivolta, from aspergillus disease. Treatment: isolation; destruction of carcasses; hatching; destruction of dead wild birds and rabbits; exclusion of living; quarantine of new birds; disinfection; locally, antiseptics by inhalation, swabbing, and internally, iron in water.
This affection prevails in certain countries and causes heavy losses among young pigeons, so that it might with great propriety be included among animal plagues, which should be dealt with by the State. The malady is a local inflammation leading to the formation of false membranes and its usual course is to progress from the mouth and pharynx, to the nasal passages, lachrymal ducts and sacs, the larynx, trachea, bronchia, intestines and skin.
Causes. The essential cause of the disease is held by Löeffler to be the bacillus dipththeriæ columbarum, which is a short bacillus with rounded ends, a little longer than the bacillus of fowl cholera and not quite so broad. It is usually found in irregular clusters, especially in the interior of the hepatic capillaries. It is ærobic, non-motile, non-liquifying, and grows on nutrient gelatine, blood serum or potato. In gelatine it forms a white surface layer, and spherical colonies along the line of puncture, which show a yellowish brown tint under the microscope. On blood serum and potato it forms a grayish white layer.
Pathogenesis. The bacillus is inoculable on other pigeons and as it usually appears in the young birds in the nest, still fed by the parent bird, it is probable that no inflammation nor abrasion is necessary to make it take. Pure cultures inoculated in the mouth gave rise to the usual local type of the disease. When inoculated subcutem it caused a local necrotic inflammation.
In mice subcutaneous injections proved fatal in five days with general dissemination of the bacillus. There are congested and hemorrhagic spots on the lungs, enlarged spleen, and the liver is marbled by numerous necrotic white masses, in the centre of which the capillaries are found to be blocked with the bacilli. This is so pathognomonic that Löffler looks on the inoculation of mice as the best means of diagnosis.