404 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



in 1899 there were 911 cases in dogs and 171 in cattle. The latter 

 receive bites most freqviently on the hind legs and in the hips and 

 about the lower jaw. These places are most accessible to dogs, owing 

 to the habit of cattle to drive their tormentors away by lowering 

 their heads and using their horns. Every animal bitten does not 

 necessarily develop the disease, but the per cent of fatalities has 

 been variously estimated, and averages from 25 to 30. This, how- 

 ever, depends on the location and size of the wound as well as the 

 amount of hemorrhage produced, and various other conditions. In 

 general, the nearer the bite is located to the central nervous system 

 and the deeper the wound inflicted, the greater the danger of a fatal 

 result. In cases in which the hemorrhage resulting from the bite is 

 profuse, there is a possibility that the virus will be washed out of 

 the wound and thus obviate the danger of subsequent appearance of 

 the disease. 



The virus after being deposited in the wound remains latent for an 

 extremely variable period of time, which also depends on the size 

 and depth of the wound as w^ell as its location and the amount of 

 the virulent saliva introduced. Experiments have proved that the 

 virus follows the course of the nerves to the spinal cord and along 

 the latter to the brain before the symptoms appear. Gerlach, having 

 collected the statistics from 133 cases, has found this time, known 

 as the period of incubation, to vary from 14 to 285 days. The great 

 majority of cases, however, contract the disease in one to three 

 months after the bite has been inflicted. 



Symptoms. — ^As in dogs, both furious and dumb rabies are met 

 with, the former being more common in cattle. A sharp line of 

 distinction, however, can not be drawn between these two forms 

 of the disease, as the furious form usually merges into the dumb, 

 from the paralysis which appears prior to death. The typical cases 

 of dumb rabies are those in which the paralysis appeal's at the begin- 

 ning of the attack and remains until death. The disease first mani- 

 fests itself by a loss of appetite and rumination, stopping of the 

 secretion of milk, great restlessness, anxiety, manifestation of fear, 

 and change in the disposition of the animal. This preliminary 

 stage is followed in a day or two by the stage of excitation, or 

 madness, which is indicated by increasing restlessness, loud roar- 

 ing at times with a peculiar change in the sound of the voice, vio- 

 lent butting with the horns and pawing the gi^ound with the feet, 

 with an insane tendency to attack other animals, although the 

 desire to bite is not so marked in cattle as in the canine race. A 

 constant symptom is the increased secretion of saliva with a con- 

 sequent frothing at the mouth, or the secretion may hang from 

 the lips in long strings. Constipation is marked, and there is mani- 

 fested a continual, although unsuccessful, desire to defecate. 



