86 DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



erosions of the cardiac end ; the pyloric end is of more normal color, but frequently the 

 seat of extensive superficial erosions, penetrating the substance of the mucous mem 

 brane, to which, wherever an abrasion exists, food usually adheres. The small intestine 

 is generally the seat of punctiform or ramified redness throughout its whole extent ; and 

 blood extravasations are common in the caecum, colon, and rectum. The liver is often 

 congested, and the gall-bladder distended with viscid bile. The spleen is two, three, or 

 even five times its natural size ; and, according to the duration and severity of the attack, 

 is more or less broken up and disintegrated in its internal structure. In one case the 

 spleen had given way at its base, and hemorrhage had taken place into the peritoneum. 

 The kidneys and suprarenal capsules are usually congested. The mucous membrane of 

 the urethra, at its origin in the pelves of the renal lobules, is often the seat of extensive 

 ecchymosis. The urinary bladder is usually very much distended with bloody urine, which 

 never coagulates spontaneously, and only under the action of heat and nitric acid. The 

 constant and pathognomonic lesion of this disease is the enlargement and even disintegra 

 tion of the spleen, with redness and erosion of the stomach. The blood is always more or 

 less affected, being anaemic, and the functions of nutrition are disturbed. In its course in 

 the South, it resembles the periodic fevers of man ; is usually sub-acute in form, and varies 

 in intensity at different times. 



I propose to designate this disease the Splenic Fever of Cattle, for the reason that 

 the disease is readily distinguished, as a rule, by the enlargement of the spleen, coupled, 

 no doubt, with other lesions. It is an enzootic disease, allied and corresponding to 

 the endemic periodic fevers of man, for which the Southern States are remarkable ; and 

 it may be deemed prudent to use a more general expression than splenic fever, viz., that 

 of periodic fever of cattle. Splenic fever is readily prevented, in all cattle north of the 

 Gulf States, by withdrawing them, during the summer months, from the pastures and 

 roads on which southern cattle have traveled and fed. The prevention of the disease in 

 Texas would call for a further and more extended inquiry into all the local causes in oper 

 ation ; but, generally speaking, the condition of soils and grasses might be altered by 

 thorough cultivation, drainage, deep plowing, &c. In Texas I have found that feeding on 

 corn tends to modify the conditions of cattle, and to invigorate their constitutions; and much 

 may be expected from the corn-feeding system only recently introduced on a comprehen 

 sive scale. 



No specific means of cure have been discovered for the malady : and palliative meas 

 ures consist in allowing animals, which suffer from the acute form of the disease, abundant 

 mucilaginous drinks, neutral salts, and occasional diffusible stimulants. Animals have 

 recovered when left to nature, as, indeed, also when they have been profusely bled and 

 purged. 



SYMPTOMS. 



Splenic or periodic fever evidently occurs in two forms, and its course may be sub 

 divided into four stages. 



The first form is insidious, latent, arfd usually the most fatal one. There are few fevers 

 that do not, at times, attack animals in such a way as to produce so little general disturb- 

 ance as to prevent their recognition in the living animal. Cases of this description occur 

 in rinderpest. I have alluded to them in my official report on the lung plague, the con- 



