SYMPTOMS OF ACUTE ARTICULAR RHEUMATISM IN CATTLE.
Sudden onset, hyperthermia, chill, fever, acid saliva, decubitus, does not stretch on rising, lameness, joints involved, metastasis, variability, morning and noon, suppuration, walking on toe, secondary articular rheumatism. Course: muscular symptoms, cardiac, pleuritic, digestive. Chronic. Muscular rheumatism: of back, loins, shoulder, quarter, neck. Changes in blood and nutrition.
There is a sudden attack with constitutional disorder, chill, staring coat, cold horns and ears, dry muzzle, impaired appetite and rumination, acid saliva, constipation, thirst, hurried breathing, hard accelerated pulse and more or less hyperthermia. Then there may come reaction with surface heat and glow. The patient inclines to lie and when raised fails to stretch the back or the hind limbs, stands with arched back, and walks stiffly and with more or less lameness. The joints attacked may be determined by local strain, compression on concussion, hence the frequency of lesions of the knees and fetlocks. Yet any of the great joints of the limbs may suffer,—hip, stifle, hock, shoulder or elbow—or several may be affected at once. The disease may extend from one joint to another, may improve in one or more, only to suffer a relapse, and may oscillate better and worse according to the state of the weather or the exposure to cold or warmth. Often almost helpless in the early morning, the patient improves greatly in the heat of the sun.
The affected joint is swollen, distended with liquid, hot and tender with considerable infiltration of the surrounding tissues, including the tendons and their synovial sheaths. Suppuration is much more common than in the same affection of the horse appearing to be due to a complex infection with pus microbes. In walking in severe cases the foot of the affected limb is planted with great care and caution mainly on the toe and there appears to be exquisite suffering when weight is thrown on it, so that the fetlock and knee may knuckle over and the patient comes to the ground. Great infiltrations, fibroid, and other hyperplasias and even calcifications are not uncommon.
Cadeac describes as secondary articular rheumatism, those infective inflammations of the joints that follow on parturition, abortion, omphalitis, enteritis, etc., but it is manifest that these are special disorders due to the presence of the microbes of specific diseases or their toxins and should be described with these rather than with rheumatism.
The course of acute rheumatism in the ox is very uncertain. Mild cases may recover in a few days. In others the lesions become extensive, great hyperplasia and induration occur around the joint and permanent stiffness and even anchylosis may supervene. The occurrence of temporary improvements and relapses is a common feature. The extension of the disease to other joints, tendinous sheaths, muscles and even internal organs is to be dreaded. Extreme tenderness of the back and loins when handled or pinched, with groaning is a marked feature especially in cold and damp times or in early morning. Cardiac complications show themselves by shortness of breath, palpitations, hard intermittent, irregular or unequal pulse, blowing murmur with the first heart sound, and other signs of circulatory trouble. Pleuritic, pulmonic and abdominal complications are also to be looked for. The costiveness by which acute rheumatism is ushered in, becomes complicated by congestion of stomach and intestine, and impaction of the first and third stomachs, great dullness, anorexia and even nervous disorder. Colic and even diarrhœa are occasional consequences.
Many cases subside into a chronic form which shows a variable condition, better and worse, according to the condition of the weather, the exposure to cold and damp, and even the changes of diet. This may last throughout life.
SYMPTOMS OF MUSCULAR RHEUMATISM IN CATTLE.
This may set in with the same abruptness as articular rheumatism, the animal in the morning after a wet, dewy or frigid night showing general stiffness and lameness with extreme sensitiveness of the skin and muscles along the back and loins. The animal moves slowly and stiffly, grunting perhaps at each step and shows inappetence, fever, dry muzzle and costiveness. This is essentially rachialgia or lumbago. Pandiculation on rising is entirely omitted.
Not infrequently the muscles of the shoulder are mainly affected and become exceedingly tender to manipulation. The patient seeks to remain recumbent and when raised will get up on his hind parts and remain thus for some time resting on the knees before he can be made to get up in front.