26 MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



a more chronic course, showing inability to swallow, slow, weak pulse, difficult, 

 noisy respiration, weakness and paralysis, spasm of muscles of head, neck 

 and back, death taking place in from two to six days. The other two animals 

 showed a mild type of the disease as slight loss of control, some exophthalmia, 

 loss of appetite and thirst and loss of condition. These animals were placed 

 on potassium iodid and nux vomica and recovered. 



"This outbreak was attributed to mouldy silage, which was being fed 

 to the horses, but in order to be more certain 150 pounds of silage were ship- 

 ped to the college and fed, first to one horse which died in two days from an 

 acute form of the disease. Another horse was fed but would not eat the 

 silage so well, consequently did not die quite so soon, living for several days. 

 In both cases the symptoms resembled those seen in the original outbreak. 

 Post mortem revealed no changes except a few petechia along the small in- 

 testine, a few infarcts in the kidney and slight softening of the brain. This 

 however was not very marked, probably due to the fact that they were acute 

 cases. Microscopic examination revealed the presence of mould in the niucosa 

 and submucosa of the intestine, also mycelial threads growing between and 

 around the renal tubules. 



"The other outbreak consisted of four horses, three of which died of an 

 acute form of the disease, the symptoms being similar to those already des- 

 cribed. The fourth being of a more chronic nature was placed on potassium 

 iodid and nux vomica and recovered. In this outbreak the hay was found to 

 contain a fine mould and was cut from an old pond which had been plowed 

 up and seeded. The water had overflown this, however, and stood for some 

 time. The symptoms and post mortems were similar to those described in 

 the first outbreak, with the exception that no histological examinations were 

 made. 



"A form of cerebro spinal meningitis is quite common in Germany. It has 

 also been described in Australia, Great- Britain and Russia. It may be that 

 these outbreaks are due to other causes than those already described. Sid- 

 amgrotzky and Schlegel found a form of coccus in the sub-arachnoid fluid, but 

 it was necessary to make sub-dural injections of cultures of this organism to 

 cause meningo encephalitis. Johne found a diplococcus in the cerebro-spinal 

 fluid of affected horses. 



"Ostertag found a diplococcus similar to the one found by Johne in the 

 cerebro-spinal fluid in the so-called Borna's disease. They were pathogenic for 

 horses and sub dural injections produced symptoms and death similar to cases 

 of Borna's disease. Hutyra and Marek call attention to the fact that bacter- 

 iological investigations have not been followed by the same result but possibly 

 the several investigators were working with the same organism. Nevertheless 

 it remains to be shown whether all cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis are due 

 to the same cause and resemble Borna's disease. On the other hand it is possi- 

 ble that epizootic cerebro-spinal meningitis of domestic animals has no specific 

 cause. 



"It is apparent that mouldy food and water has caused several outbreaks 

 in this country. Natural infection in European outbreaks is also supposed to 

 take place through infected food and drinking water. The disease is not trans- 

 mitted from one animal to another. Mohler calls attention to the very inter- 

 esting work of Schlegel and the Berliner Tierarztliche Wochenschrift who 



