Foot a?id Mouth Disease. 321 



a mild affection and unless neglected, the patients entirely re- 

 cover in about fifteen days. The pecuniary loss in dairy and 

 feeding cattle has been found to average in Great Britain about 

 $10 per head, and as few animals escape, the consequences are 

 usually very serious. In England the losses from this disease in 

 18S3 reached $5,000,000, in France, those of 1871 were $7,500,000 

 and in Switzerland, $2,500,000. In Germany, over 7,000,000 

 animals suffered from 1889-94. 



Differential Diagnosis. While a mistake might be made in an 

 isolated case, such a thing should be absolutely impossible where 

 cattle and other animals are collected in herds. The rapid infec- 

 tion of the whole herd, the implication of sheep and swine along 

 with the cattle, and the eruption of the characteristic bullae on 

 the mouth, feet and udder or on two of these locations to the ex- 

 clusion of the rest of the bod}'', is not likely to be counterfeited 

 by another disease. An outbreak of gangrenous ergotism in 

 Kansas, Missouri and Illinois in the spring of 1884, was pro- 

 nounced to be foot and mouth disease by a number of veteri- 

 narians, including an expert sent by the Government of Canada. 

 On behalf of the U. S. Treasury I investigated the disease, which 

 caused in many cases sores on the mouths and feet, but it spared 

 all sheep and swine, could not be conveyed to them nor to new 

 born calves by inoculation, and in many cases it caused gangrene 

 of all the tissues, soft and hard, and separation of the limb at a 

 given point, often near the tarsus. The quarantines were raised, 

 the disease made no further extension, and the existing panic 

 subsided. 



Infection of Man. The first authentic record of this affection 

 in man we owe to Valentin, who records that during the outbreak 

 in Hesse in 1695 men suffered from inflammation of the gums, 

 tongue and mouth. Michel Sagar says, that in 1764 men who 

 drank the milk were affected with aphtha. In 1828 it was con- 

 veyed from animals to men in Bohemia (Nadberny), in Styria 

 (L,evitsky) and Wurtemberg (Kolb). In 1834, three veteri- 

 narians, Hertwig, Mann and Villain, voluntarily drank a quart 

 each of the warm milk of a cow suffering from this affection. 

 On the second day Hertwig suffered from fever, headache and 

 itching of the hands and fingers. Five days later bullae formed 

 on the hands and fingers, the tongue, cheeks and lips. In the 

 21 



