STOxMATITIS PUSTULOSA CONTAGIOSA 49 



the body should be protected from cold by clothing adapted to the season. 

 Medicines appear to be of little use. When they are employed, narcotics 

 should be selected, and exhibited by the method of hypodermic injection. 



The injection of large quantities of antitoxic serum has been tried 

 recently, but with very moderate success, and under most favourable cir- 

 cumstances tetanus must be looked upon as an extremely fatal disorder. 



STOMATITIS PUSTULOSA CONTAGIOSA 



This is a specific contagious disease of a febrile character, in which an 

 eruption appears in the mouth and on the lips, and sometimes on the skin 

 of the face, rarely on other parts of the body. It is communicable from 

 horse to horse, either by inoculation or by contact of the virus with the 

 mucous membrane of the mouth. It has a period of incubation from one 

 to three days, and runs its course in from ten to twelve days. 



Foals and young horses are most susceptible to infection, and old 

 ones least so. 



The spread of infection usually takes place by means of food and 

 water, and by the use of infected mangers, troughs, pails, and other 

 stable utensils. 



It is seldom fatal, but on gaining access to a stable of young horses it 

 spreads rapidly through them unless prompt measures of precaution are 

 taken for its suppression. 



One attack of the disease is protective against another for some time, 

 but for what period is not known. 



Symptoms. — Save in exceptional cases there is not much constitu- 

 tional disturbance. A slight- rise of temperature, a little increase in the 

 number of pulsations, are the only signs of general disorder. 



Twenty-four to forty-eight hours after infection, soreness of the mouth 

 is evinced by the discharge of sticky saliva in the act of feeding, and more 

 or less difficulty of mastication. The mucous membrane of the mouth is at 

 this time of a bright red colour, and here and there small pimples are seen 

 on the inner surface of the lips, or beneath the tongue or the gums, or 

 maybe on the skin of the lips, or on all these parts in succession. Each 

 pimple becomes charged with matter, and is quickly resolved into a round 

 superficial ulcer with a sharp thin edge, and showing little or no tendency 

 to spread. The eruption may be considerable and closely packed, or it 

 may consist only of a few scattered sores. In some instances the gland 

 beneath the jaw (submaxillary lymphatic gland) is enlarged, and the erup- 

 tion may appear in the nostrils, giving rise to a discharge, when the disease 

 is sometimes mistaken for glanders. 



Vol. II. 38 



