CATTLE. 161 



excrement from infected animals on the sole of a shoe, or end of a cane, has sometimes been 

 sufficient to carry the disease to a great distance. 



An important authority says, in this connection: &quot; All who have investigated the subject of 

 rinderpest have been struck with the important place held by excrement in its propagation. 

 As the disease concentrates its morbid action on the stomach and bowels, their products are 

 especially charged with the poison ; and if brought in contact with other animals in their fresh 

 condition, or after having been closely packed in a mass, they will communicate the disease 

 with the greatest certainty. Hence the history of the malady is full of instances of infection 

 from recently manured fields, from those on which the manure has been spread but frozen 

 for weeks and months, from grazing on fields formerly occupied by diseased animals, and 

 from occupying buildings, yards, loading banks, wagons, cars, ships, and boats in which the 

 sick have been. The manure is usually deposited in masses, thick enough to prevent the 

 ready destruction of the virus by the action of the air, and hence its virulence is only extin 

 guished by the slow process of putrefaction. &quot;Whatever, therefore, retards this process, will 

 prolong this danger; and thus the frosts of winter, and the firm packing of the manure, will 

 each favor the retention of the contagion.&quot; 



When the carcasses of animals infected with this disease are left accessible to dogs and 

 other animals, the meat or bones are liable often to be carried by them to be eaten into the 

 very yards or buildings where cattle and sheep are kept. The importance of preventing the 

 spread of this contagion by deeply burying such carcasses as soon as possible, will readily be 

 seen. All ruminating animals are liable to rinderpest, but cattle are more liable to it than 

 sheep, goats, and deer. The development of this disease is sometimes so rapid that death 

 occurs after the second day, but usually from five to six days after the disease makes its 

 appearance. 



From the time of infection, this disease usually makes its appearance somewhere from 

 the fourth to the ninth day, and generally on the fifth or sixth from the date of exposure. 

 The period of incubation has in some exceptional cases been known to be protracted to two, 

 or even three weeks, but the general rule is as above stated. 



The first symptom of the cattle plague is a very perceptible increase in the temperature 

 of the body, which may be readily detected by a thermometer introduced into the rectum. 

 This occurs from twenty. four to forty-eight hours before any other change is noticeable in 

 the infected animal. The temperature of the body will rise to 105 or 106 P., accompanied 

 with other fever symptoms, such as shivering, dryness of the skin, twitching of the muscles, 

 a staring coat of hair, restlessness, colicky pains, unequal distribution of temperature 

 throughout the body, with sudden changes of temperature, particularly noticeable at the base 

 of the horns. 



At first, the bowels will generally be constipated, which conditions will be succeeded by 

 violent purging; the dry and hot condition of the eyes and mucus membrane lining the nose 

 and mouth in the early stages is followed by a watery discharge, which soon takes a turbid 

 form resembling pus. The urine is scanty and dark colored, and the pulse very rapid. The 

 mucus membrane throughout the body undergoes a peculiar change that is especially noticea 

 ble in the vagina of cows, and may also be seen in the mouth and nose of all animals 

 infected, which in the eady stages become spotted or striped with red, such spots showing 

 great inflammation. About twenty-four hours after the red spots make their appearance, 

 yellowish white or gray specks may be seen on the red ones. These specks may be easily 

 rubbed off by the finger, being formed by the loosening of the cuticle. When thus rubbed 

 off a dark red depression remains. As the disease progresses the body gets cold, and the 

 animal finally becomes unconscious and dies. 



In some cases small tumors and eruptions are seen about the neck, dewlap, or flank. 



