Prognosis. A certain number of animals recover from the milder attacks which have not become complicated by the grave trophic and nervous lesions, but as in glanders, recovery from severe attacks and in the advanced stages is practically unknown. The mortality is set at 70 per cent. and upward.
Symptoms in the Ass and Mule. The disease usually remains discrete, the lesions in the generative organs or other seat of infection being the marked symptoms, and recovery the rule. Œdema of the end of the penis, obliteration of the folds around the orifice of the urethra and eversion of the urethral mucosa are the most constant features, distinct even in semi-erection. Œdema of the sheath and skin eruption may follow. Exceptionally a mule proves as susceptible as the horse, and shows the disease with the same fatal severity.
Symptoms in Dog. A bitch, 15 days after vaginal injection of the infected equine blood, showed severe vaginitis and hyperthermia (100°). On the 23d day she aborted, followed by muco-purulent discharge, vulvar œdema, pallor of the mucosæ, anæmia, rapid emaciation, paresis and occasional convulsions. Blood drawn from the vulva contained the trypanosoma. She died on the 66th day. The temperature rose to 103°.
Two male dogs that lined the above infected bitch showed after 12 days, engorgement of the sheath and scrotum, muco-purulent discharge, and abundance of the trypanosoma in the blood of the affected parts. Cutaneous lesions on the loins, thighs, sides or forehead, showed erection of the hair, with infiltration, or shrivelling and bloodlessness.
Other dogs showed arthritis, corneal opacities and ulcers, hypopion, cataract, nasal discharges, facial periostitis, dyspnœa and syncope.
Symptoms in Rabbits. Rouget found in inoculated rabbits, extensive gangrene of the skin, involving even the cranial bones, ulcerative keratitis, hypopion, panophthalmia, following on the earlier genital troubles of vaginitis, swelling and discharge.
Treatment. Some cases recover spontaneously a few may be aborted in the earliest stage of the disease, but cases that have advanced to any extent and assumed a grave character are practically hopeless.
An important element in treatment is to do away as far as possible with the cause of generative excitement since the disease is aggravated and more rapidly advanced by frequent copulation. Rodloff from a very wide experience speaks highly of castration of the stallion. Castration of the mare has not been specially advocated and the absence of marked lesions in the ovaries, may deter the veterinarian, yet whatever promises to lessen in any degree the genesic excitement is not to be despised, and the measure has besides a sanitary value for other animals.
Early local treatment is the most promising, and especially if it can be applied to exposed animals during apparent incubation. Injection of the urethra, sheath, vulva, vagina and uterus with antiseptic lotions, and apply them to the external sores. Mercuric chloride 1:2000, carbolic acid 2:100, silver nitrate 1:250, calcium chloride 1:100, or chlorine water may be taken as examples. When local swellings have supervened it would be entirely appropriate to incise them freely or even to excise them and cauterize thoroughly with stronger agents.
Internal treatment by mercuric chloride 1½ to 3 grains, potassium iodide 2 to 5 drs., arsenic 7 to 14 grains, has been widely used but to little purpose. The same may be said of Rodloff’s treatment by tonics and carminatives (sal ammoniac, camphor, iron, angelica, gentian, ginger and valerian.)