306 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



The disease is never, or hardly ever, seen in calves under six 

 months old, unless they are fed on a diet which is not an 

 exclusively milk one. 



Quarter-ill, like many other diseases, has periods at which it is 

 rife in the country, and other periods when it seems to be dormant. 



It is most frequently seen when animals are changed from 

 one pasturage to another, or from one condition of living to 

 another, more particularly when the change is from poor feeding 

 to rich pasturage. The disease is also most prevalent in low- 

 lying pastures, and when there is rain and humid heat, though 

 it may occur on any lands and in all kinds of weather. 



Symptoms. — The symptoms of the disease are usually mostly 

 as follows, but occasionally the initiatory ones do not indicate 

 it very clearly, and may readily be taken for those of some 

 other affection, and perhaps one which may be cured by treat- 

 ment, and so consequently are apt sometimes to mislead even 

 the expert : — Loss of appetite, dulness, listlessness, cessation of 

 rumination, harshness and staring of the coat, elevation of tem- 

 perature, rigors and local tremblings, coldness of the extremities, 

 then lameness or stiffness when moved, arching of the back, and 

 on examination of the skin a tumour is found forming under 

 it in some part of the body. It may be on the head, neck, 

 shoulders, dewlap, loins, genital organs, or mammary gland, but 

 by far most frequently in either the shoulder or the loins. 



M. Hess has observed that the tumour forms more often on 

 the right side of the animal than on the left, but he can give 

 no reasons why this should be so. 



The tumour is found in regions which abound in muscular 

 tissue, and where the connective tissue is loose, and seldom in 

 the region of joints and tendons, and where the tissues are firm. 



These tumours are ill-defined, and have no limiting membrane. 

 Externally they may not appear of great size, but when care- 

 fully examined they are found to extend deeply into the sub- 

 jacent tissues. 



At first hot and painful to the touch, they rapidly become cold, 

 insensitive, and dead in their centres, and when then handled 

 are found to crepitate or crackle, due to the presence of evolved 

 gases under the skin ; their peripheries extend and penetrate into 

 the surrounding parts until they attain enormous dimensions. 



If incised, they discharge a dark-coloured and foetid, acid 

 fluid, succeeded by a flow of frothy, citron-coloured serosity. 



