652 DISEASES OF CATTLE, SHEEP, GOATS, ETC. 



ticable, the animal should be tied up securely and watched carefully 

 for a week or ten days. In case suspicious symptoms do develop the 

 dog should be examined by a veterinarian familiar with the disease, 

 and if he pronounces the case rabies the animal may then be killed. 

 If the animal is valuable and shows no symptoms of rabies there is 

 no reason for destroying it. In this way valuable dogs can often be 

 saved to their owners. 



POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION OP CARCASS. 



When a dog suspected of having rabies has died or been killed 

 a post-mortem examination should be made. In rabies there are no 

 absolutely characteristic post-mortem findings. Particular attention 

 should be paid to the stomach. The mucous membrane of this organ 

 is frequently congested, and in some cases a marked hemorrhagic 

 inflammation is present. Foreign bodies, as sticks, straw, stones, 

 coal, dirt, etc., and an absence of food in the stomach are very sus- 

 picious indications of rabies. The absence of these conditions, how- 

 ever, does not by any means exclude rabies. Undoubted cases of the 

 disease have frequently been received at this laboratory where a 

 considerable quantity of food was present in the stomach and the 

 mucous membrane was in a normal condition. Redness and con- 

 gestion of the pharynx and larynx with cerebral and meningeal 

 congestion are also to be found in some cases. A negative post- 

 mortem examination when the animal has died naturally also tends 

 to suggest rabies as the cause of death. From the fact that the 

 pathological alterations are not constant they are not relied upon to 

 any extent in this laboratory. There are cases, however, in which, 

 the microscopic changes being indefinite, we are forced to get all 

 possible information, including history and post-mortem findings, 

 if we are to draw conclusions without waiting for rabbit inoculations 

 to decide definitely the diagnosis. 



METHOD OF PREPARING PARTS TO BE FORWARDED TO LABORATORY. 



It is only necessary to forward the head to the laboratory after 

 the post-mortem examination has been made. This is removed with 

 the skin intact by cutting through the middle of the cervical vertebrae. 

 It should then be wrapped in dry cheese cloth or other material and 

 forwarded by express. During very warm weather the head, after 

 being wrapped, should be placed in a tin receptacle and packed in a 

 wooden box containing chopped ice. By removing the head at the 

 middle of the cervical vertebrae the plexiform ganglia are left intact, 

 and upon arrival at the laboratory they can be removed and examined 

 microscopically for the lesions described by Van Gehuchten and 

 Nelis, and a diagnosis can be made within twenty-four hours. 



This plan is not practicable in summer when several days are 

 required for the head to reach the laboratory, as the brain undergoes 

 softening, becomes invaded with bacteria, and the experimental rab- 

 bits inoculated are liable to death from septicemia. Putrefactive 

 changes are also liable to occur in the ganglia, and thus render the 

 conclusions from their examination indefinite. In case the time re- 

 quired to reach the laboratory is considerable and the weather warm, 

 the brain, including the medulla oblongata, should be removed as 



