CONTAGIOUS BLOOD DISEASES. 455 



fail to detect it, while examinations made earlier or later are successful. 

 The appearance of the disease is at the conclusion of the rainy season, 

 when the waters dry up and become foul. This has led to the idea that 

 the parasite lives in water; but as this is also the time of the year of great 

 swarming and activity of flies, and as horses crowd together, so that the 

 fly with piercing apparatus still wet can pass from horse to horse, the 

 opinion has grown that it is a compulsory parasite, which is transmitted 

 through the bodies of insects. 



Symptoms. — in experimental cases a small raised swelling in the seat 

 of inoculation appears within 24 hours, increasing to 2 to 4 inches in 

 diameter, and 1 to II/2 inches high by the fourth day, and loosely con- 

 nected with the parts beneath. From the fourth to the fourteenth day 

 it decreases in size and softens, and general symptoms set in. In casual 

 cases these general symptoms are the first to be observed. There is a 

 transient fever 102 to 104 degrees, highest toward night, and without 

 preliminary chill, hot mouth and skin, dullness, sluggishness, inappetence, 

 yellowness of the mucosae, petechias on conjunctiva or vulva and some- 

 times nodules like those of urticaria on the skin. After a day or two 

 these symptoms subside, the temperature is 101 degrees, or below, the 

 mucosEe clear and pale, and the spirit and appetite nearly normal. These 

 slight first paroxysms are rarely seen by the veterinarian, having been 

 looked upon as one of the oft-occurring bilious attacks of the hot climate. 

 The remission lasts for 3 to 10 days, and the second paroxysm sets in, 

 like the first, but even more marked; temperature 102 to 104 degrees, 

 slight catarrh from nose or vulva, it may be stocking of the legs, or pitting 

 swelling under the breast bone or abdomen, or in the sheath. Like the 

 fii-st, the second paroxysm subsides, and after another interval the third 

 sets in to be followed in like manner by a fourth or fifth, and so on if 

 the patient survives. With each the symptoms become more pronounced, 

 the nmcosae are left more pale and bloodless, debility and weakness are 

 greater, emaciation is more marked, oedema of the limbs or body more 

 extensive, hyperthermia may reach 105 degrees, or more, the pulse is 

 weaker and the heart more liable to palpitation, and the respirations may 

 reach 50 to 60 per minute. Ulcers are sometimes found on the tongue, 

 inner sides of the lips, the nose, eyes, the vulva, beginning as epithelial 

 degeneration, followed by superficial erosion and early healing. Some- 

 times similar erosions appear on the skin. Generative excitement may 

 be present. The submaxillary glands sometimes swell and even sup- 

 purate, and discharge a gluey pus. The bowels are usually costive at 

 first, the faeces may by glazed, but in adva'nced stages they may become 

 soft, pultaceous, and foetid. The urine, at first normal in amount, be- 

 comes later abundant or even profuse. It is at first yellow and turbid, 

 later of a dingy green or greenish yellow. Sometimes it diminishes as 

 the disease advances. It may contain bile, albumen, or even casts, 



