94 



THE HAMAKUA OUTBREAK. 



By direction of the Board I left for Hawaii the latter part of 

 January. At Hilo I was met by Dr. O. B. Shipman, Acting Dep- 

 uty Territorial Veterinarian, who informed me that he had re- 

 cently destroyed a typical case of glanders in a pack mule on a 

 plantation a dozen miles north of Hilo (Pepeekeo) ; also that 

 this animal was one of a drove of more than fifty head which 

 had been gathered by a dealer, presumably in the Kohala and 

 Waimea districts, and sold off in small bunches to many of the 

 plantations in the Hamakua and Hilo districts. This necessitated 

 a thorough inquiry as to the whereabouts of all of these animals. 

 They were all located and no further cases were found nor did 

 subsequent investigations at their place of origin disclose any- 

 thing to indicate that they had brought any disease with them. 

 In fact, the Pepeekeo case did not develop until several months 

 after the animal had been bought. 



This isolated case of glanders ( ?) in a district where the dis- 

 ease had not been known for years at first suggested that we 

 were dealing with epizootic lymphangitis instead of glanders. 

 This suspicion was confirmed when we reached the first of the 

 Hamakua plantations in question (Honokaa). There w^e found 

 three animals isolated, one mule and two horses. The mule had 

 but a slight discharge from the nose, no swelling of the submax- 

 illary glands, but extensive worm-like swelling of the lymph 

 vessels on the inside of the thighs, from the tail nearly to the 

 hocks, and studded with rounded nodules the size of pigeon ^gg^. 

 A number of smaller but disconnected nodules were scattered 

 over the neck, chest and flanks. This animal was mallein tested 

 twice, intradermally, but failed to react. 



The next, a gray saddle horse, had been running from the nose 

 for several days. The discharge was not profuse but was blood 

 stained, and formed sticky, brownish crusts around the nostrils. 

 The submaxillary space was filled by a diffuse irregular swelling 

 with soft centers. On the left side of the neck was a corded 

 lymphatic with a few small nodules. This animal was also mal- 

 lein tested twice with negative result. 



The third animal, a horse belonging to an outsider, had been 

 isolated as suspicious. When examined it showed only symp- 

 toms of Hawaiian nose disease and when it failed to react to 

 the mallein tests it was released- 



The two other animals were taken to the bluff overhanging 

 the ocean and shot. 



On post-mortem examination, the mule showed no distinct 

 lesions in the nose, but the corded lymphatics and nodules on the 

 hind legs and body were found to contain the thick creamy white 

 pus characteristic of epizootic lymphangitis, some of them being 

 almost ready to burst open, while others were hard and in- 

 durated. 



In the horse the lesions in the nose were very pronounced, 



