FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 657 



newal of the mouth lesions is rapid and usually complete in four 

 or five days after rupture of the vesicle. The teats are often in- 

 volved with similar vesicles to those of the mouth and abscess of 

 the udder occasionally results. 



In sheep and swine the foot lesions predominate and like cattle 

 if not kept clean and free from infection shedding of the hoof is 

 not uncommon in aggravated cases. Lactation in milking animals 

 is usually impaired during the most severe part of the disease but 

 usually returns to about 75 per cent of the normal flow as the dis- 

 ease subsides and the appetite returns. Beef animals may lose 

 flesh to a considerable extent and are sometimes slow to recover it. 

 Herein lies the source of greatest loss in foot and mouth disease. It 

 is doubtful if any of the warm blooded animals are immune, though 

 it seldom attacks any but cattle, sheep and swine. The mortality, 

 however, is not high in mature individuals under good care and sur- 

 roundings, though young animals fed or infected milk may suffer 

 such severe and extensive infection as to terminate fatally. Of the 

 pure bred cattle insured with the Agricultural Cattle Insurance com- 

 pany in Scotland, 1,474 head died during the epidemic of foot and 

 mouth disease in Great Britain in 1855 to 1860, yet not one was re- 

 ported dead of the foot and mouth disease. James Law, former Dean 

 of Cornell University Veterinary College and one of America's most 

 experienced veterinarians with wide European and American ex- 

 perience, advises that he became very familiar with the disease in 

 Europe in his early life and later in America while filling official 

 commissions for the United States government. Speaking of Eng- 

 land, he says: "Cattle brought in at the great autumnal markets al- 

 most of a necessity brought with them the foot and mouth disease. 

 During the next fortnight they passed through the plague on the 

 feeding farm, all recovered during the ensuing fourteen days and 

 the following spring when the dairy cows freshened there was no 

 germ left to infect the offspring." 



In the epidemic of 1870 there was little or no official restriction 

 to amount to anything and the disease was self-limiting. At this 

 time, however, we must remember that there was little or no cattle 

 transportation or stock car movement especially westward and that 

 the winter freshening of cattle was not so general as it is today. 

 These conditions would tend to give the germ little or no new ma- 

 terial to work on once all individuals of a herd or community were 

 attacked and had been recovered for several weeks before new ar- 

 rivals came into the herd. It is probable also that the summer tem- 

 perature had much to do with the eradication of the disease as it is 

 easily destroyed at a temperature of about 88 degrees F. On the 

 other hand in parts of the tropics of Asia this disease is so prevalent 

 that all newly imported animals are expected to have it and separate 

 pens are provided for interning them for a few weeks until the acute- 

 ness of the attack has passed, when they are permitted to proceed to 

 their destination. This is in harmony with European experience 

 and result and would lead us to believe that the statement that it 

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