Hast Coast Ficvku. ]<)7 



seni;i of tlio lungs, tlie n'denia closely icseinbliiii; thai seon in cases of 

 horst> sickness, and the occasional appearance of an ante or post niorteni 

 (lischai'ge of frotli from the nose le<l some observers to aver tliat tlieir 

 animals were dying of horse sickness. Together with cases prese)iting 

 these lesions were cases corresponding in all respects to cases of (jrdi- 

 nary Texas fever, and as the repeated examination of smears taken from 

 the blood and kidneys of afiected animals led to the frequent discovery 

 of the ordinary type of Fi/rof^onia hic/f'niinum, and as a fair percentage 

 of the cases suffered during life from hpemoglobinuria, thei-e seemed to 

 be no good reason to depart from the original diagnosis of Texas fever. 

 The medicijies generally used in the treatment of Texas fevei- were 

 prescribed, i.e. the administration of carbolic acid, <|uinine, calomel and 

 linseed oil, but proved ineffectual, while hjcally devised remedies gave 

 no better results. As time went on the mortality showed no signs of 

 abating. Not a few farmers persisttnl in maijitaining that the disease 

 was distinctly c<nitagious and was spread from animal to animal bv 

 contact, and others asserted that their animals were suffering from a 

 mixed infection of redwater and rinderpest, altliough it was shown 

 that animals salted to rinderpest were amongst the victims, and that a 

 liberal use of rinderpest serum, of which we happened to have a fair 

 supply on hand, neither checked nor modified the course of the disease. 

 Public feeling now began to run high, and to allay this uneasiness 

 the Rhodesian Government secured the services of Mr. Robertson, 

 veterinary bacteriologist. Cape Colony, to carry out further investiga- 

 tions in order to place the character of the disease beyond dispute. 



In due course Mr. Robertson arrived, and after going carefully 

 into the matter, published an interim report in Mav, 1902, in which 

 he then gave it as his opinion that the view of the local veterinary 

 otiicers was correct, and that the mortality occurring amongst cattle in 

 the vicinity of Salisbury and Umtali was due to Texas fever of an 

 exceptionally virulent type, the virulence of the disease being attri- 

 butable to the presence of unusual numbers of infected ticks during a 

 season when the climatic conditions were specially favourable for their 

 multiplication, the breakdown of animals which were believed to be 

 immune to the disease being, it was suggested, the result of <:)ver 

 infection. After the puljlication of his report Mr. Rolieitson and I 

 carried out further experiments for the purpose of confirming our 

 N'iews, in the course of which a considerable number of calves were 

 inoculated, innumerable post mortems were made, and records were 

 kept of the temperatures of vax-ious animals contiacting the disease as 

 the result of natural infection. The results obtained by the inocula- 

 tion of calves first with blood taken from Australian cattle which had 

 survived the Umtali epidemic of the previous year, and afterwai'ds 

 with the blood of cattle suffering from the disease, went far to confirm 

 our opinion that the disease was Texas fever, as the calves so in«^icu- 

 lated, which were in all probability susceptible to this disease, uiider- 

 went on the occasion of the first inoculation the ordinary reaction 

 following inoculation against this disea.se^that is to say, tlieir tem- 

 peratures displav'ed the usual double rise generally recorded i)i vm-h 



