FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE 251 



Foot-and- Mouth Disease is a most acute and contagious 

 specific fever, affecting not only cattle and sheep, but pigs 

 and it is said horses, and even man. 



Symptoms. Smacking of the lips is followed by a flow of 

 saliva. After three or four days the mucous membrane of 

 the lips becomes red, and small vesicles form, which coalesce to 

 produce larger blisters. The nostrils and the tip of the tongue 

 become similarly affected. The animal walks tenderly or 

 limps, and may kick, making a rattling noise with the hoofs. 

 The skin round the coronet and in the cleft between the 

 digits becomes hot, red, and painful. The temperature rises 

 high up to 105 F. Mortality is not usually great, unless when 

 animals die from want of food or are killed by rough treatment, 

 as was frequently the case in the Argentine Republic during 

 the outbreak of 1900. Sometimes an attack is so mild that, 

 under favourable circumstances for the animal's comfort, its 

 presence is hardly noticeable. The most serious losses occur 

 in flocks during the lambing season, and among cows nursing 

 calves, when the virus taken in with the milk acts as a poison 

 to the young; and in the case of milch cows which go off 

 their milk. Affected animals should be left severely alone, 

 supplied with abundance of soft food and water, and not 

 allowed to trample in mud, manure, or sand, to poison or 

 irritate the lesions about their feet. If they are tame and 

 accustomed to being handled without becoming excited, the 

 sores may be treated with an electuary of treacle, i oz., and 

 borax and potassium chlorate, I drachm each. 



Pleuro-pneumonia is a highly infectious disease of the 

 lungs of cattle, and, on post-mortem examination, is charac- 

 terised by more or less pleurisy, accompanied by pneumonia, 

 which causes consolidation of the lung substance, which in 

 section presents a marbled appearance. On the examina- 

 tion of a microscopic section, the lymph-vessels and air- 

 tubes are seen to be completely filled with an inflammatory 

 coagulated exudation. The country was freed from the disease 

 by the energetic action of the Board of Agriculture in 1898, 

 and its re-admission is one of the dangers to the cattle 

 industry that the Board has constantly before it. 



Broncho-pneumonia 1 is a disease which was brought 



1 For complete details of appearances, etc, see Williams' Principles 

 and Practice of Veterinary Medicine^ Menzies & Co., Edinburgh. 



