Much may be done by disinfection of stables and yards where the victims of tetanus have been. The anærobic germ soon loses its virulence in free air and sunshine, and one has to dread especially, filthy stables, collections of manure, contaminated litter, wood, combs, brushes and buckets. In unpaved yards remove the infected surface soil and replace by fresh disinfected earth, or still better, well burned brick.
For horses which are necessarily exposed to manure or contaminated soil, it is commendable to wash the hoofs and pasterns on returning from work and then sponge with a weak solution (5 per cent.) of phenic acid. Another resort is to smear the hoofs daily with an ointment of tar and lard, equal parts. This cannot protect from infection by splinters of wood containing the spores, but is to a large extent preventive in the case of bacilli that might have been otherwise lodged on the surface and which could have been carried into the wounds inflicted by nails and other noninfected bodies. Careful shoeing is all important, to avoid the bruises, suppurating corns and gravelling which make openings for the ready entrance of the spore.
Roux and Nocard recommend immunization by protective inoculation. This is not only possible, but would be justified economically in the case of valuable animals, or in all animals in a district where the bacillus tetani is universally spread. The method is the same as advised above for the immunization of animals, for the production of antitoxin.
In districts where tetanus is rare, the cost of universal immunization against the disease would very far exceed the losses front casual cases. Under such conditions it would be an economical blunder.
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE.
Synonyms. Definition. Susceptible animals: cloven footed, all warm blooded animals. Historic notes; Geographical distribution; English invasions in 18th and 19th centuries; North and South American invasions in 1870; In Asia from immemorial times. Causes: infection in liquid of vesicles, saliva on pastures, roads, feeding and drinking places, halters, etc.; from feet on pastures, buildings, yards, roads, cars, boats, etc.; from teats through milk. Microbe not certainly known, micrococci, streptococci and bacilli found. Virus inert when dried 24 hours at 88° F.; survived 9 months at 32° F., attack immunizes for 5 months; injection of 1 lymph and 2 of blood of immune renders refractory; filtered lymph still virulent; microbe probably infinitesimal; accessory causes: movement, mingling of cattle, sheep, swine, etc., war, trade, common pasturage, infected roads, ships, yards, halters, etc. Symptoms: incubation 36 hours to 6 days; slight fever; redness, tenderness of buccal mucosa and teats, grinding teeth, smacking tongue, tender feet, shaking them backward, bullæ on mouth and teats, not nodular, nor chambered as in variola, salivation, bloody, circular or irregular raw sores, vesicles and erosions in interdigital space, shedding hoofs, sheep walk on knees, gangrenous mammitis; intestinal eruption and diarrhœa in sucklings. Mortality. Prognosis; recovery in 15 days, deaths rare if cared for. Losses from destruction of product and emaciation—occasional abortion. Diagnosis: based on infection of all exposed bisulcates, localization on mouth, teats and feet, inoculability on other warm blooded animals, unchambered vesicles, slight fever, and prompt recovery. Notes of affection in man. Symptoms in man. Prevention and treatment in man. Prevention in animals: exclusion of contagion, immediate and mediate; close infected pastures and roads, stop all movement of bisulcates, disinfect all boats, cars, places and things exposed, exclude visitors, guarantees with strange animals, quarantine and disinfect arrivals, exclude fresh animal products, fodder and litter, wash, disinfect soiled clothes. Inoculation undesirable. Treatment in animals: cleanliness, dryness, disinfection, segregate sick and well, gaseous antiseptics, liquid ointments. Gruels, mashes, sliced, boiled, or pulped roots. Local dressings for mouth, teats and feet. Evulsion of hoof. Mammitis.
Synonyms. Aphthous fever: Aphtha Epizoötica, Eczema Epizoötica.
Definition. An acute infectious disease of the lower animals but especially of ruminants, characterized by a slight fever and the eruption of vesicles, or ballæ on the skin and mucosæ, and usually those of the mouth, feet and teats.
Susceptible Animals. The animals that prove the most obnoxious to the disease are the bisulcates—large and small ruminants and swine. Man however is susceptible as are also horses, dogs, cats and fowls, when they are inoculated or fed upon the infected milk or other products. It is doubtful if any warm-blooded animal enjoys an immunity.
History, Geographical Distribution. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century this disease prevailed in Central Europe and England. The latter country stamped out both this and the Rinderpest, but it continued to prevail on the Continent and was re-imported into England in 1839. It reached America through an importation from England to Montreal in 1870, but owing to more or less effective quarantine, to the absence of cattle traffic from east to west, and above all to the prolonged confinement in yards and stables during our northern winter, it burnt itself out in the course of the year. In Asia it has prevailed from time immemorial, and it was imported into South America in 1870.