DISEASES OF CATTLE 317 



nant edema but not to blackleg. Malignant edema may also be easily 

 differentiated from anthrax in that the blood and spleen are normal 

 in appearance, while in the latter disease the blood is dark and of a 

 tarlike consistency and the spleen appears swollen, injected, and soft- 

 ened. The local tumor in malignant edema contains gas bubbles, 

 while in anthrax swellings these are absent. Inoculation experi- 

 ments of guinea pigs, rabbits, and chickens will also disclose the dif- 

 ferences among the above three diseases, since all of these species are 

 killed by the germ of malignant edema, only the first two species by 

 the anthrax bacillus, while the guinea pigs alone will succumb to the 

 blackleg infection. 



Treatment. Treatment is chiefly surgical and consists in laying 

 the infected areas wide open by free incision, followed by a liberal 

 application of a 30 per cent solution of hydrogen dioxide and subse- 

 quently a 5 per cent solution of carbolic acid. Usually the disease 

 when observed has advanced to such an extent that medicinal inter- 

 ference is without avail. Preventive treatment is by far the most 

 desirable, and consists, essentially, in a thorough disinfection of all 

 accidental and surgical wounds, the cleansing of the skin, and the 

 exclusion of soil, filth, and bacteria during surgical operations of any 

 nature. Sheds, barns, and stables should receive a thorough applica- 

 tion of quicklime or crude carbolic-acid wash after all rubbish has 

 been removed and burned. All animals should be burned or deeply 

 buried and covered well with quicklime. 



SOUTHERN CATTLE FEVER (TEXAS FEVER). 



This disease, which is more commonly known as splenetic, or 

 Texas, fever, is a specific fever communicated by cattle which have 

 recently been moved northward from the infected district, or which 

 is contracted by cattle taken into the infected district from other 

 parts of the world. It is characterized by the peculiarity among 

 animal diseases that the animals which disseminate the infection are 

 apparently in good health, while those which sicken and die from 

 it do not, as a rule, infect others. 



It is accompanied by high fever, greatly enlarged spleen, de- 

 struction of the red-blood corpuscles, escape of the coloring matter of 

 the blood through the kidneys, giving the urine a deep-red color, by 

 a yellowness of the mucous membranes and fat, which is seen more- 

 especially in fat cattle, by a rapid loss of strength, and by fatal results 

 in a large proportion of cases. 



This disease has various names in different sections of the coun- 

 try where it frequently appears. It is often called Spanish fever, ac- 

 climation fever, red water, black water, distemper, murrain, dry mur- 

 rain, yellow murrain, bloody murrain, Australian tick fever, and 

 tristeza of South America. 



The earliest accounts we have of this disease date dack to 1814, 

 when it was stated by Dr. James Mease, before the Philadelphia Soci- 

 ety for Promoting Agriculture, that the cattle from a certain district 

 in South Carolina so certainly disease all others with which they mix 

 in their progress to the North that they are prohibited by the people 

 of Virginia from passing through the State; that these cattle infect 



