Pericardial or Cardiac Tuberculosis is usually secondary and may be suspected when friction is synchronous with the heart sounds, when the heart beats or sounds are irregular or intermittent, or when the area of cardiac dulness is greatly encreased.
Tuberculosis of Bones and Joints. This is more common in calves and growing cattle, but may be present at any age. As affecting the vertebræ it causes stiffness and unsteady gait, perhaps what was looked on as a simple sprain causes persistent lameness in spite of treatment, and a point or area of tenderness on pinching is manifest. In the large bones and joints of the limbs, the cancellated extremities, or it may be a simple process with its inserted tendon or ligament, shows a firm, persistent swelling, and there is acute synovitis of the joint. In acute cases in calves the epiphysis may become detached from the diaphysis so as to make the limb useless. In the mature animal the enlargement and lameness may last for years without material change. The condition may be difficult to diagnose, in the absence of signs of tuberculosis elsewhere in the body, or unless the synovia, withdrawn through a sterilized nozzle, with antiseptic precautions, should show the presence of bacilli.
SYMPTOMS OF TUBERCULOSIS IN SWINE.
In young pigs, infected by the milk of the dam, there are general unthriftiness, stunted growth, emaciation and unhealthy skin, encrusted with a dark unctuous matter or scurf, as in chronic hog cholera. Temperature is variable on successive days, or times of the same day. Digestive disorder is manifested by slight colics, diarrhœa, vomiting, tympany and abdominal tenderness. The pig becomes pot bellied, with hollowness of the flanks in front of the iliac bones, and manipulation may detect the tuberculous bowels and mesentery in the form of a knotted mass.
Roloff describes a caseous colitis with ulceration of the mucosa, which is probably tuberculous.
Enlargement of the superficial lymph glands (pharyngeal, inguinal, prescapular) may be present. Traumatic infection of the castration sore and inguinal glands has been noted. As the disease becomes generalized, implicating the lungs, there is a dry paroxysmal cough and hurried breathing, becoming more oppressed on the slightest exertion. If quiet and thin enough for auscultation and percussion the usual morbid lung sounds can be heard. Unlike cattle, pigs are very subject to muscular and intermuscular tubercles, and as there is a general tendency to caseation, these are usually to be found as saccular cavities with soft, sometimes liquid, caseated contents. The bones and joints may suffer, as in cattle. The tonsils are usually enlarged and even caseous. The outer auditory meatus and the interior of the eye have been found affected. Cases affecting the brain were manifested by nervous disorder, rearing up on the fence, turning in a circle, spasms, rolling of the eyes, paresis and paralysis, often hemiplegic. When one or other of these indications of local disease is found associated with the general disorder of the lungs or bowels, in a herd fed on raw meat scraps, milk, or the soiled food of tuberculous animals, the evidence is strongly in favor of the local tubercle corresponding to the symptoms. It is noticeable that diagnosis by microscopic examination is difficult and uncertain because of the relatively very small number of the bacilli. In the mature pig the disease may be difficult of diagnosis without tuberculin, and a post mortem examination may be necessary to identify the disease in the herd.
SYMPTOMS OF TUBERCULOSIS IN THE HORSE.
Though not a common disease in the horse yet a large number of cases are on record, and accidental and experimental cases alike show that this animal is peculiarly receptive to the disease. The early symptoms depend on the location of the primary lesions, yet the general phenomena of debility, languor, early fatigue, unfitness for violent efforts, perspiration on slight exertion, irregular appetite, occasional rises of temperature and emaciation may usually be noted. The advance is usually slow, almost imperceptible, with periods of improvement and aggravation.
Some cases have appeared in the submaxillary and pharyngeal lymph glands with sore throat and were for a time mistaken for glanders (Ehrhardt, McFadyean). Others show a swelling of the appearance of cold abscess in the seat of the prepectoral glands (Johne, Röbert). One showed widely distributed lymph nodes and enlarged and indurated lymph glands (prepectoral, inguinal, etc.) with thickening of the intervening lymph vessels (Cadiot). This last suffered from bronchitis two months before. A number of cases reported by McFadyean showed special stiffness of the neck, with swelling and distortion of the vertebral joints, due to a tubercular osteitis and periostitis, and associated as necropsy showed with internal tuberculosis. Cases of this kind occurred in the practice of McConnell, Dawes, Insall, Malcolm and Hill, so that tuberculosis may well be suspected in cases of disease of the cervical vertebræ. In all of these cases post mortem examination, performed at once, or after a long delay, showed generalized internal tuberculosis.
When the chest is extensively affected, the symptoms are those of broncho-pneumonia or heaves (broken wind), there is hurried breathing with paroxysmal cough sometimes dry and wheezy, at others moist or mucous, a double lift of the flank in expiration, and a muco-purulent discharge from the nose, sometimes streaked with blood. Auscultation detects a varying force of the respiratory murmur at different points, with more or less wheezing. Blowing and other sounds conveyed to the ear through the solidified lung tissues are more rare or less marked. Percussion may show general resonance, encreased at emphysematous points, and diminished in small circumscribed areas, the seats of tubercle or consolidation. There are of course the attendant debility, inappetence, fever and steadily advancing emaciation. In some cases the enlarged tracheo-bronchial glands are seen to bulge forward between the two first ribs, and by the sides of the trachea. Stocking of the limbs is frequent.