GENERAL DISEASES. 513 



STRANGLES. 



[Synonyms: Distemper, colt-ill, eartarrhal fever, one form of shipping fever, 



Febris pyoycnica.] 



Definition. — Strangles is an infectious disease of the horse, mule, 

 and ass; seen most frequently in young animals, and usually leaving 

 an animal which has had one attack protected from future trouble of 

 the same kind. It appears as a fever, lasting for a few days, with 

 formation of matter, or pus, in the air tubes and lungs, and fre- 

 quently the formation of abscesses in various parts of the bodj^, both 

 near the surface and in the internal organs. It usually leaves the 

 animal after convalescence perfectly healthy and as good as it was 

 before, but sometimes leaves it a roarer or is followed by the devel- 

 opment of deep-seated abscesses, which may prove fatal. 



Causes. — The cause of strangles is infection by direct contact with 

 an animal suffering from the disease, or indirectly through contact 

 with the discharges from an infected animal, or by means of the 

 atmosphere in which an infected animal has been. There are many 

 predisposing causes which render some animals much more subject to 

 contract the disease than others. Early age, which has given it the 

 popular name of colt-ill, offers many more subjects than the later 

 periods of life do, for the animal can contract the disease but once, 

 and the large majority of adult and old animals have derived an 

 immunity from previous attacks. At 3, 4, or 5 years of age the colt, 

 which has been at home, safe on a meadow or in a cozy barnyard, far 

 from all intercourse with other animals or sources- of contagion, is 

 first put to work and driven to the market town or county fairs to be 

 exposed to an atmosphere or to stables contaminated by other horses 

 suffering from disease and serving as infecting agents. If it fails to 

 contract it there, it is sold and shipped in foul, undisinfected railway 

 cars to dealers' stables, equally unclean, where it meets many oppor- 

 tunities of infection. If it escapes so far, it reaches the time for 

 heavier work and daily contact on the streets of towns or large cities, 

 with numerous other horses and mules, some of which are sure to be 

 the bearers of the germs of this or some other infectious disease, aiid 

 at last it succumbs. 



The period of the eruption of the last permanent teeth or the end 

 of the period of development from the colt to an adult horse, at 

 which time the animals usually have a tendency to fatten and be ex- 

 cessively full-blooded, also seems to be a predisposing period for the 

 contraction of this as Avell as of the other infectious diseases. 

 Thoroughbred colts are very susceptible, and frequently contract 

 strangles at a somewhat earlier age than those of more humble origin- 

 Mules and asses are much less susceptible and are but rarely affected. 

 Other animals are not subject to this disease, but there is a certain 

 analogy between it and distemper in dogs. After exposure to infec- 

 H. Doc. 795, .'50-2 .3.3 



