Mortality. The hæmorrhagic septicæmia of cattle cuts off from 50 to 80 per cent. of the animals attacked.
Prevention. The first consideration is to isolate and kill all the affected animals, to destroy the carcasses by burning or boiling and to burn or disinfect all objects that may have become contaminated. The buildings, yards, and fences, must be disinfected, and as the bacillus is very resistant a solution of corrosive sublimate and sodium chloride, a drachm of each to the gallon of water may be freely used after thorough cleansing. Or a whitewash containing ¼ lb. chloride of lime to each gallon may be substituted. Feeding and drinking troughs may be burned. Manure may be freely treated with sulphuric acid. Infected fields should be closed for years and if possible drained.
Immunization of buffalo and sheep has been secured by making cultures of the microbe in free air at 86° to 90° F. and inoculating the animals with the weakened virus, on three successive occasions with intervals of several days. It induces a transient fever, with no serious phenomena (Oreste and Armanni). A second available method is to pass the virus through the system of the pigeon and inoculate with the pigeon’s blood, on three successive occasions, the animals to be protected. It is manifestly impossible to put such immunizing methods in force on wild deer, and for these probably the best course is to drive them from the infected range, to an uninfected one, having retained them for a few days interval in a confined area, to allow of any already infected animals developing the disease. A similar avoidance of waters running from the infected tract is imperative.
Treatment, has been unsuccessful. Friedberger failed with hypodermic injection of carbolic acid, and internal administration of salicylic acid. Gal gave subcutem 5 per cent. solution of creolin, and doses of 1½ oz. of the same agent by the mouth. Five buffaloes out of seventeen recovered. Friedberger suggests deep incisions of the swellings so as to admit the air, and treatment of the wounds with strong antiseptics.
SEPTICÆMIA HÆMORRHAGICA OF THE SHEEP: Lombriz.
Synonyms. Definition. Geographical distribution, Argentina, France, etc. Causes: bacillus; intravenously, etc., youth, verminous affections, low condition. Bacteriology: ovoid bacillus with polar stain, bleached by Gram’s solution, ærobic, nonmotile. Symptoms: Chronic form in summer, diarrhœa, arched back, stiffness, emaciation, flattened wool, segregation, impaired or depraved appetite, shedding wool, anæmic skin, dependent dropsies, sunken eyes, weak small pulse, temperature variable—elevated, nasal and buccal discharge, weakness, paresis, dulness, torpor, lung symptoms, arthritis. Diagnosis: from distomatosis and strongylosis. Acute form with high fever, constitutional disorder, colics, diarrhœa, death in 24 to 36 hours, subacute form. Lesions: black blood, congestions, and general petechiæ. Lungs, liver, kidneys and spleen, congested, swollen. Subacute cases have lighter blood, and lesions. Chronic cases anæmic, blood diffluent, lymph glands enlarged, congested; connective tissues and serous cavities dropsical, gastric, intestinal and hepatic worms, spleen shrunken. Mortality: great in acute, less in chronic. Prevention: segregation, exclusion of all sheep from unknown or suspected flocks, antiseptic dip and quarantine for new purchases, expose a few as a test; cleanliness, disinfectants, avoid watershed from infected lands, wide range, outdoor life, generous diet, remove weak, emaciated, anæmic. Immunization. Treatment.
Synonyms. Pasteurellosis Ovina. Infectious Pneumo-Enteritis.
Definition. An infectious febrile affection of the sheep, chronic or acute, characterized by dulness, stiffness, or paresis, anorexia, thirst, disorder of the breathing and digestive organs, black diffluent blood, petechiæ, reddish effusions in the serosæ or connective tissue, and congestive or inflammatory lesions of the lungs, liver, kidneys and intestines. The presence of a cocco-bacillus (diplococcus, strepto-cocco-bacillus, pasteurellosa) in the lesions is especially characteristic.
Geographical Distribution. Though Lignieres first demonstrated this as a bacteridian disease in the Argentine Republic, he was, after his return, able to identify the same affection in the flocks of almost every department of France, in newly imported English Lincolns and German Merinos, so that there can be little doubt that the malady exists in all or nearly all countries engaged in sheep husbandry, though it has been usually attributed to parasitisms of the lungs, liver or alimentary canal alone.
Causes. The essential cause is manifestly the bacillus, which Lignieres has isolated, cultivated in vitro, and successfully inoculated intravenously in the sheep, which he also infected by feeding the pure cultures. Intravenously it proved fatal to Guinea pig, rabbit, pigeon, chicken, rat, mouse, horse, ass and ox. Yet many other accessory causes must be admitted as operating in different cases.