144 REPORT ON MURRAIN. 



prior to the mouth being affected, when the animal persists in 

 lying down, or stands with the back arched, in evident pain and 

 distress ; the coronets are covered with vesicles which extend 

 to the interdigital spaces and around the heels, requiring but 

 very slight pressure to cause them to discharge their contents. 

 Accelerated respiration and circulation, with intense pain, lame- 

 ness, and inability to stand, swelling, with great heat and 

 tenderness, are the early symptoms, which, aggravated by the 

 general uneasiness of the animal, and vascular nature of the 

 parts under the affection succeeded by sloughing of the integu- 

 ments, or hoof, or both, exposing bones and subjacent tissues — 

 the latter perforated by sinuous abscesses. 



If the disease assumes a mild vesicular character in old ani- 

 mals, and proper precautionary measures are resorted to, the 

 febrile symptoms will subside about the fifth day ; but when 

 the patients are young, especially when drawing naturally their 

 food from the teat, or fed upon milk from cows whose glands are 

 affected, and in milch cows, not only do we find the severity of 

 the symptoms increased, but complications of more or less obsti- 

 nacy to deal with. 



Young sucking animals suffer from the mouth, fauces, gullet 

 and digestive canal becoming implicated in the vesicular erup- 

 tion, the irritation and soreness from which prevents the taking 

 of sufficient food ; colic and diarrhoea add to the general sys- 

 temic disturbance, quickly carrying off the creature. 



In milch cows the teats are involved with the mammary 

 gland, which becomes hot, swollen, and painful ; the vesicles 

 are burst in the process of milking, or by the sucking calf, ex- 

 posing raw surfaces which, however, speedily dry, the scab 

 from which is removed each time by the hand of the milker, 

 giving rise to greater pain and rendering the animal opposed to 

 the operation ; the milk is retained, and by its presence acts as 

 a foreign body, creating inflammation within the gland. 



All symptoms now assume an aggravated form, and great 

 agony is exhibited as complications occur. Fever is increased, 

 as also are the respiration and circulation ; the heart may be 

 heard in some instances to beat many paces distant ; ulceration 

 and sloughing succeeds the tumefaction of the phalanges ; the 

 back is arched as the animal stands agonisingly foaming at the. 

 mouth, champing and smacking ; the breath is foetid, salivation 

 copious, and mixed with blood ; eyes bloodshot and protruded ; 

 matter forms within the mammary glands, resulting in oblitera- 

 tion of one, or more, or all the quarters, and possibly total re- 

 moval by mortification, during the process of which the lungs 

 from irritative fever are seriously involved ; the virus of gan- 

 grene is absorbed, prostration ensues, hoofs slough off, and with 

 them bones, leaving the creature the alternative of a stump ; 



