EPIZOOTIC APHTHA. 271 



In sheep the emaciation is considerable ; they cannot eat, 

 and move about with difficulty. The injury to the feet is 

 the most serious complication amongst our flocks. It is not 

 easy to attend to the feet of many hundred animals ; dirt and 

 earth tend to irritate the sore skin, and unhealthy ulcers per- 

 sist. Chronic foot disorders from this cause are frequent, 

 and lead to serious loss to the flockmaster, as sheep cannot 

 be got into condition so long as they are lame. 



In pigs the disease is characterised by considerable fever 

 and pain. The animals scream as they move about, and 

 champ with their jaws. There is a great tendency to slough- 

 ing of the hoofs, and in markets it is not uncommon to see 

 numbers of the hoofs strewed where the pigs have passed. 

 The animals become emaciated, and, when young, are very 

 apt to die. 



It has been asserted that the disease originates spontane- 

 ously more readily in the pig than in any other animal, and 

 that the communication of this disease from one country to 

 the other on the Continent of Europe depends chiefly on the 

 pigs driven to markets by dealers. Thus have many out- 

 breaks in Prussia been attributed to Polish swine, and 

 Tschudi ascribes an outbreak in Austria to herds of swine 

 driven from Servia and Bosnia. 



The communication of the disease to man admits of no 

 doubt. The history of the various outbreaks of the disease 

 demonstrates this. There have been many contradictory 

 statements on the matter, but the symptoms repeatedly no- 

 ticed in man after drinking the milk of diseased cows are 

 unmistakeable. Very good descriptions of these are to be 

 found in the Veterinarian for 1841, at the time the foot- 

 and-mouth disease first appeared in England. 



Treatment and Prevention. Though epizootic aphtha is 

 not often a fatal disease, attention must be paid to the proper 



