No mare should be served which shows swelling, nodules, distortion, or gaping vulva, a muco-purulent discharge, or too frequent or too prolonged heats.
No stallion in such locality should be allowed to serve which shows pasty swelling of the sheath, swelling, shrinking or distortion of the penis, red, angry, tender meatus urinarius, or a muco-purulent discharge.
Unless in case of Arabian horses the appearance of white spots on the dark ground of the sheath, penis, vulva, or perineum, should be ground for debarring from service until an absolutely stainless record covering a number of years has been shown.
MAL DE CADERAS.
This is a disease caused by Trypanosoma Equinum described by Voges who studied the affection in the Argentine Republic as it exists in a region extending from Santa Fe, and Corrientes on the south to Bolivia on the north. It resembles surra in prevailing in tropical heat, during wet weather, in its intermittent character, in the presence of the mature trypanosomata in the blood at the beginning of a paroxysm and their disappearance toward the end of it, in the supervention of rapid and extreme emaciation, debility and anæmia, in the destruction of red blood globules and the passage of the coloring matter by the kidneys, in the presence of paresis and œdemas, in its expending its energy mainly on the soliped and in the constancy of the mortality. Death occurs in two to five months in horses, and six to twelve months in asses and mules. Swine and water hogs contract the disease casually and it is inoculable on white and gray rats, mice, rabbits, dogs, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, ducks and monkeys, (Nyctipithecus felinus), and exceptionally on Guinea pigs. The same measures of prevention would be indicated as in cases of surra and dourine.
INFECTIOUS PARAPLEGIA OF SOLIPEDS IN MARAJA.
Synonym. Definition: Infectious, anæmic, dropsical paraplegia. Origin: Decomposition of myriads of horse carcasses in torrid heat; rodents; swine; horses. Causes: Microbe uncertain; infection in corral and vicinity; manure; rubbish; flies; hot dry weather. Symptoms: Decreasing severity; preliminary weakness, dulness, emaciation, dyspnœa. Paresis: Fifty per cent. paraplegic; marasmus; difficult defecation or urination; paretic penis; anorexia; ardent thirst with diuresis; rumbling of bowels. Œdema, epigastrium, abdomen, sheath, mammæ, head. Cutaneous sloughing, stupor, asthenia, rapid emaciation, hemiplegia, impaired peristalsis. Blood dark, viscid. Lesions: Intestinal congestion; petechiæ of serosæ; icterus; enlarged, soft, congested liver; spleen engorged, softened; kidneys swollen, congested; petechiæ on bladder; congested lungs, thoracic serosæ, cerebral meninges. Relation to surra. Mortality excessive or constant. Treatment hopeless. Prevention: Keep sound from sick and from infected places and things; kill and bury sick; disinfect harness, trappings, wagons, utensils, buildings, manure and rubbish heaps; destroy flies and mosquitoes, vermin (rodents), etc.
Synonym. Quebra Bunda: Broken Buttock.
Definition. An acute infectious disease of horses characterized by a condition of fever, with rapid loss of condition, resulting in rapid and extreme emaciation, local dropsies, cutaneous eruptions and ulcers, a rapidly advancing anæmia and debility, with lessening control of the hind quarters and death in almost all instances.
History of the Disease. Luis Calendrini da Silva Pacheco says the malady was unknown on the island until 1830, when, on account of the great excess of wild horses and their devouring the pastures needed for the more valuable cattle, great numbers were killed and their hides marketed. This continued for over a year without any attempt to dispose of the carcasses. These accordingly lay in heaps in a damp climate, under the equatorial sun, in a condition of putrefaction, exhaling the most offensive odors. Stimulated by frequent complaints, the government ordered that the carcasses should be burned to ashes, but no success was accomplished, in one case 800 bodies having been merely roasted a little on the surface. The district around Chaves contained the greatest number of horses, there the greatest number were killed, and there the disease broke out. A number, variously estimated at from 25,000 to 60,000 were driven into the little bay of Juncal and killed by burning the grass, which, however, did not at all consume the bodies. The disease attacked first the capivaras (rodents) in the district of Chaves, killing off the whole race; then the wild and domestic swine suffered, and finally it ravaged the equine race, and though confined to Chaves for two years it was extended through sales of horses and raged with such fury that in five years not a horse was left alive in the island, except a small remnant of a few hundreds in Chaves, where the infection started.