80 HORSE, SWINE AND POULTRY DISEASES 



brandy when the prostration is very marked. Locally a strong solu- 

 tion of iron, alum, or of sulphate of iron and laudanum may be 

 used; or the affected part may be painted with tincture of muriate 

 of iron or with iodized phenol. In mild cases a lotion of 4 drams 

 sugar of lead and 2 ounces laudanum in a quart of water may be 

 applied. It is desirable to avoid the formation of wounds and the 

 consequent septic action, yet when pus has formed and is felt by 

 fluctuation under the finger to be approaching the surface it should 

 be freely opened with a clean, sharp lancet, and the wound there- 

 after disinfected daily with carbolic acid 1 part to water 10 parts, 

 with a saturated solution of hyposulphite of soda, or with powders 

 of iodoform or salol. (Spl. Rpt. Horse, Dept. Agr. 1911.) 



DOURINE. 



This disease has been described under various names, accord- 

 ing to the country in which it is found, chief among which may be 

 mentioned el dourine, maladie du coit, covering disease, equine 

 syphilis, genital glanders, breeding paralysis, chancrous epizootic, 

 epizootic paraplegia, and beschalkrankheit. The most commonly 

 employed name for this, affection in the United States is the short 

 and distinctive term dourine, which is taken from the Arabic, mean- 

 ing unclean. 



Dourine is a specific infectious disease affecting under natural 

 conditions only the horse and the ass, transmitted from animal to 

 animal by the act of copulation, and due to a single-celled animal 

 parasite or protozoan, the Trypanosoma equiperdum. It is charac- 

 terized by an irregular incubation period, the confinement of the first 

 symptoms to the genital tract, the chronic course which it runs, and 

 by finally producing complete paralysis of the posterior extremities, 

 with a fatal termination in from six months to two years. 



Many widely different theories as to the exact cause of this af- 

 fection have existed and been advocated in the past 50 years. The 

 fact that the disease spread from animal to animal in certain centers 

 of infection, and that large horse-breeding districts and countries 

 which did not import any breeding animals, such as New Zea- 

 land, Australia, England, and South America, remained free from 

 the disease, showed it to be of an infectious nature. 



As opposed to the theory of coition playing the entire part as 

 a means of transmission of the disease, there are the statements of 

 Hayne and Haxthusen, who have reported the disease in geldings 

 and also in mares which have never had sexual intercourse with the 

 stallion. It may also be transmitted with ease artificially by means 

 of inoculation into horses, dogs, rabbits, rats, and other susceptible 

 animals, with relatively large quantities of blood and membranes 

 of certain organs of animals affected with the disease. However, 

 sexual intercourse is by far the most common means of transmission, 

 and if other means do exist they are so rare that they have little or 

 no practical importance in the adoption of measures for the suppres- 

 sion of the disease. 



Symptoms. From one to ten days after copulation, or in stal- 

 lions it may be after some weeks, there is irritation, swelling, and a 



