270 EPIZOOTIC APHTHA. 



umbilicated or pustular. They contain a clear fluid, and soon 

 burst or dry up, so that in five or six days thin scales cover 

 the spots where the vesicles have existed. 



All symptoms of fever subside in favourable cases by the 

 fourth day; the appetite is restored, and convalescence well 

 established by the seventh or eighth day. Complications are not 

 unfrequent; the fever runs high, ulceration spreads, the ani- 

 mal becomes exhausted, the hoofs slough off, the blood be- 

 comes impure, and death occurs about the ninth or tenth day. 

 A very large number of such cases have been witnessed this 

 year in Holland, and in the United Kingdom. In some cases 

 a heavy per-centage of deaths has been witnessed in Scot- 

 land; and several instances have come to my knowledge of four, 

 five, and six cows in dairies, usually containing eight, ten, or 

 a dozen animals, having died of the disease, or been slaugh- 

 tered in time to bleed them, so as to sell the flesh. Though 

 usually mild, there are occasions when this disease is very 

 virulent. 



b. Special Symptoms in different animals. Amongst 

 cattle the constant drivelling, blood-shot eyes, quick breath- 

 ing, accelerated pulse, arched back, and difficulty to stand, 

 are leading signs of the disease. When it attacks a lot of 

 dairy cows, great inconvenience to the owner and danger to the 

 animals arise from the eruption on the teats. The vesicles are 

 soon burst by the milkmaid, and, in grasping the teat, the 

 ulcerated surface bleeds and the ulcer spreads. It scabs over 

 between the periods at which the cow is milked, but the scab 

 is removed repeatedly, and with the intense local pain there 

 is a disposition on the part of the animal not to allow her- 

 self to be milked. She kicks and holds back the milk, so that 

 the udder is not ' stripped/ and this soon leads to an attack of 

 mammitis, which may be fatal, or may lead to induration and 

 ultimate atrophy of one or more .quarters of the udder. 



