204 DISEASES OF CATTLE, SHEEP, GOATS, ETC. 



one of carbolic acid. Clothes stained with such offensive products 

 should be washed. 



The general treatment of contagious mammitis does not differ 

 from that of the simple form, except that antiseptics should be given 

 by the mouth as well as applied locally (hyposulphite of soda, one- 

 half ounce daily) . 



COWPOX. 



This is another form of contagious inflammation of the udder 

 which does not spread readily from animal to animal except by the 

 hands of the milker. It is held to occur spontaneously in the cow, 

 but this is altogether improbable, and so-called spontaneous cases are 

 rather to be looked on as instances in which the germs have been pre- 

 served dry in the buildings or introduced in some unknown manner. 

 It is not uncommon in the horse, attacking the heels, the lips, or some 

 other inoculated part of the body, and is then easily transferred to 

 the cow, if the same man grooms and dresses the horse and milks 

 the cow. It may also appear in the cow by infection, more or less 

 direct, from a person who has been successfully vaccinated. Many 

 believe that it is only a form of the smallpox of man modified by pass- 

 ing through the system of cow or horse. It is, however, unreason- 

 able to suppose that this alleged modified smallpox could have been 

 transmitted from child to child (the most susceptible of the human 

 race) for ninety years, under all possible conditions, without once 

 reverting to its original type of smallpox. Chauveau's experiments 

 on both cattle and horses with the virus of smallpox and its inocula- 

 tion back on the human subject go far to show that in the climate of 

 western Europe, at least, no such transformation takes place. Small- 

 pox remains smallpox and cowpox, cowpox. Again, smallpox is 

 communicable to a person who visits the patient in his room but 

 avoids touching him, while cowpox is never thus transferred through 

 the air unless deliberately diffused in the form of spray. The dem- 

 onstration of a protozoan germ in smallpox implies a similar microbe 

 in cowpox. 



The disease in the cow is ushered in by a slight fever, which, 

 however, is usually overlooked, and the first sign is tenderness of the 

 teats. Examined, these may be redder and hotter than normal, and 

 at the end of two days there appear little nodules, like small peas, of 

 a pale-red color, and increasing so that they may measure three- 

 fourths of an inch to 1 inch in diameter by the seventh day. The 

 yield of milk diminishes, and when heated it coagulates slightly. 

 From the seventh to the tenth day the eruption forms into a blister 

 with a depression in the center and raised margins, and from which 

 the whole of the liquid can not be drawn out by a single puncture. 

 The blister, in other words, is chambered, and each chamber must be 

 opened to evacuate the whole of the contents. If the pock forms on 

 a surface where there is thick hair, it does not rise as a blister, but 

 oozes out a straw-colored fluid which concretes on the hairs in an 

 amber-colored mass. In one or two days after the pock is full it 

 becomes yellow from contained pus, and then dries into a brownish 



