418 Catarrhal Fever of Sheep. 



lation of blood in the anterior chamber of the eye, as well as kera- 

 titis has also been observed. Here and there fibrinous deposits may 

 form on the buccal mucous membrane. 



The course is acute, and its duration averages nine days. It fluc- 

 tuates however in the different cases between one and thirty days. The 

 convalescent stage is always protracted. 



The prognosis appears to be unfavorable, as according to Grunth 

 45% of the patients die from the disease, or must be slaughtered. In 

 the recovered animals a permanent shrinkage in the secretion of milk 

 may result. 



In croup without complications Grunth observed 33.3% deaths, while in the 

 cases complicated with broncho-pneumonia the mortality was 42.8%, in those which 

 are associated with diarrhea 48%, in complications with metritis 52.9%, and in the 

 cases showing a simultaneous affection with broncho-pneumonia and metritis 78.6%. 



Differentiation from malignant catarrh should be based on the facts 

 that in the primary nasal croup there usually exists no keratitis, the 

 affection runs a more favorable course when compared with catarrhal 

 fever, it principally affects cows, and produces no cerebral disturbances. 

 If the pseudo-memjjranes developing in the nose are obscured, the disease 

 may be confused with broncho-pneumonia, metritis, or croupous 

 enteritis. 



The treatment is purely symptomatic. The same remedies which 

 come into consideration in other inflammations of the nasal mucous 

 membrane or in broncho-pneumonia, enteritis, metritis, etc., are adapted. 

 At the same time it is advisable to separate the affected animals from 

 those which are healthy. 



Literature. Grunth, Z. f. Tm., 1905, IX, 232. 



Catarrhal Fever of Sheep. (Malarial catarrhal fever, Geel dikkop, 

 Bekziekte, Ouil bek, Blaw tong.) 



Under this name a disease of sheep and goats is known in South 

 Africa, which occurs there under similar local and periodical conditions 

 as horse sickness (see p. 285) and which in some years causes great 

 losses, especially among sheep herds. It was first described by Hutcheon 

 and Spreull, then by Paine, and recently by Theiler. 



The symptoms which develop from artificial infection, after an 

 incubation period averaging four daj^s, consist in diminished appetite, 

 dullness and fever (up to 42.5°), severe hemorrhagic stomatitis, with 

 shedding of great shreds of epithelium; further a marked edematous 

 swelling of the forehead and the laryngeal region, and a cyanotic dis- 

 coloration of the tongue. Later the swollen parts become hard and wrin- 

 kled, sometimes ulcerative keratitis and panophthalmitis, as well as 

 diarrhea and icterus set in, whereupon in about 40% of the cases death 

 follows. In some animals an inflammation of the corium of the hoofs 

 develops in the meanwhile. In favorable cases the duration of tlie 

 disease until recovery is about three weeks. Quinine and calomel, also 

 scarifications of the tongue are supposed to be beneficial in action. 



The autopsy reveals, aside from the local changes on the head, only 

 a general blood infection, and in protracted eases anemia. The spleen 

 is, even in acute cases, only moderately swollen. 



Although the disease is not directly contagious, Spreull succeeded 

 in transmitting it with filtered blood to sheep but not to goats, and 

 the natural infection appears to be transmitted by insects. Sheep recov- 

 ered from the disease are immune against later infections, their blood 

 however proves virulent sometimes even after 50 days. 



