TUBERCULOSIS^ CONSUMPTION OR WHITE PLAGUE. 851 



in cold weather — by leaving the stable suddenly for the cold outer air, 

 by rising suddenly in the stall or by being driven in a run, or by drink- 

 ing cold water or by eating dusty food. With oxen when put suddenly 

 to draft work he blows more than the unaffected animals. The disease 

 may exist and yet the spirits may be as good, the eye as clear and full, 

 the coat as smooth and slick, and the skin as soft and mellow as in health. 

 Some such animals give as much milk of as rich a quality, or when put 

 to fatten lay on flesh as well as healthy cattle in the same herd. In the 

 more favorable cases percussion will, however, elicit circumscribed areas 

 of dullness or wincing, or other sign of tenderness and auscultation, or 

 when the ear is directly applied to the part, may detect crepitation or 

 wheezing over the same points. By covering the nose and mouth with 

 a sack or blanket the breathing is rendered more labored and the morbid 

 sounds become clear and more definite. A departure from the natural 

 respiratory murmur is significant of tuberculosis. Much stands in the 

 way of successful treatment even in this early stage. The heavy muscu- 

 lar and bony mass of the shoulder covers the anterior lobe and partially 

 muffles the auscultation sound while it renders percussion useless. The 

 thick covering of the ribs in fat animals proves a barrier to successful 

 auscultation or percussion. In this early stage there is usually no ap- 

 preciable elevation of temperature, a slight rise of one degree takes place 

 so as to render it useless for purposes of diagnosis. 



V. Tuberculosis in Advanced Stage. 



When the disease is more advanced and the pulmonary lesions more 

 extensive, the animals usually appear less thrifty on the same feed, yet 

 fat animals are habitually killed for food that show quite extensive 

 pulmonary tuberculosis. 



With loss of condition, the coat loses its luster somewhat, the hair be- 

 comes dry and stares in patches, and the skin loses its mobility and 

 mellowness. The cough becomes more frequent, more paroxysmal 

 under excitement, harsher, more broken, and either dry or husky or 

 moist and gurgling, with a succeeding deep respiration. When the skin 

 on the last ribs is pinched up between the finger and thumb it is slower 

 in flattening doAvn to its normal smoothness, pinching of the spine at 

 the shoulder or back, or it may be of the sternum, may cause wincing 

 or even moaning, and the same may come of percussing the ribs smartly 

 with the closed fist. As a far more decided evidence of flatness on 

 percussion on the various affected parts and of abolition or lessening of 

 the respiratory murmur, which is replaced by wheezing or by bronchial 

 blowing sound, heart beats and abdominal crepitation or gurgling convey 

 to the ear more clearly through intervening consolidated tissue. The 



