146 Agricultural Bacteriology. 



COWPOX. 



Small pox in man finds its counterpart in diseases of 

 similar nature in the cow, horse, and sheep. There is ap- 

 parently some relation existing between human small pox 

 and cow pox, as inoculations from man to the cow and 

 from cow to man can be made. The disease in sheep is 

 limited to sheep alone, not even being transmitted to 

 goats. 



The lesions of cow pox appear on the udder and teats. 

 The first symptom is a tenderness of the skin, followed 

 by the appearance of small reddish spots, which develop 

 into vesicles or blisters filled with a clear liquid. Later 

 ( tho contents become more like pus. The pustules be- 

 come darker in color and drier until nothing remains but 

 a dry scab that drops off. The duration of the disease is 

 about twenty days. 



It is not a serious disease as far as the herd is con- 

 cerned. With milch cows it may cause a great deal of 

 inconvenience in milking. The vesicles are broken by 

 the hand of the milker, thus producing large sores on the 

 teats which heal slowly and which make milking very 

 difficult. An effort should be made to limit the spread 

 of the trouble in the 'herd by milking the affected cows 

 last, since one of the agents of distribution of the dis- 

 ease in the herd is the milker whose hands are contam- 

 inated from the ruptured vesicles. Nothing can be done 

 in a curative way, but the use of carbolized vaseline on 

 the teats may serve to make the milking less difficult and 

 aid in healing the sores. 



The milker may become infected from the cow by get- 

 ting some of the contents of the vesicles into a wound or 

 crack on the hand. The trouble in man is local and not 

 at all serious unless the sores become infected with pus- 



