50 HEALTH AND DISEASE 



With the soreness of the mouth there may or may not be difficulty of 

 swallowing. About the sixth day the sores begin to heal, while others of 

 more recent eruption will still be in the nodular form or in the early stage 

 of ulceration. 



The features which distinguish this disease from glanders, with which it 

 may be confounded, are: (1) the short period of incubation; (2) the rapidity 

 of its spread; (3) the superficial, sharply-defined, thin-edged ulcer; (4) the 

 great rapidity with which the sores heal; (5) the absence of any inflamma- 

 tion of the lymphatic vessels; (6) the sudden onset and the short duration 

 of the nasal discharge. 



Treatment. — The disease usually runs a benign course, and requires 

 but little interference on the part of the attendant. The mouth may l^e 

 washed out two or three times a day with a solution of chlorate of potash, 

 or a weak solution of alum, but beyond this no local applications are 

 needed. General treatment will not go beyond the administration of a 

 little nitrate of potash in the food once a day. 



The diet should consist of bran, boiled roots, and scalded chafl', oxev 

 which a little common salt may be sprinkled. 



Measures of Prevention. — In this connection it must be remem- 

 bered that the chief source of the virus is the saliva. 



When the disease makes its appearance, the sick should be promptly 

 removed from the healthy, the bedding should be burned, the mangers 

 and fittings, baskets and buckets, &c., well scoured with a strong solution 

 of soda, and freely disinfected. The floor of the stable should be scraped, 

 well brushed out, and dressed with carbolic solution, or well covered with 

 lime. 



TUBERCULOSIS OF THE HORSE 



It was for a long time believed that the horse was refractory to the 

 invasion of tubercle, and the impression still remains that the disease is 

 extremely rare in this animal. Recent enquiries, however, tend to prove 

 that this view is erroneous. The improved methods of investigation which 

 have lately been introduced have enabled the pathologist to demonstrate 

 the existence of the tubercle bacillus in various organs — lungs, liver, &c. — in 

 diseases which were formerly described by other names, as caseous degenera- 

 tion, lymphadenoma, and induration, or scirrhus. The detection of the 

 tubercle bacillus in morbid deposits in the glands and other structures is, 

 of course, conclusive, and it may also be said that it is essential for correct 

 diagnosis. 



Koch's discovery of the tubercle Itacillus (fig. 221) established a new 

 era in the history of consumption and other forms of tuberculous disease. 



