446 BUKEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



or less advantage, and some particular one seems to suit particular 

 cases or patients. To destroy the grapes, they may he rubbi'd daily 

 with strong caustics (copperas, bluestone, lunar caustic), or each may 

 be tied round its neck by a stout waxed thread, or finally and more 

 speedil}' they may l)e cut off by a blacksmith's shovel heated to red- 

 ness and applied with its sharp edge toward the neck of the excres- 

 cence, over a cold shovel held between it and the skin to protect the 

 skin from the heat. The cold shovel must be kept cool by frequent 

 dipping in water. After the removal of the grapes the astringent 

 dressing must be persistently applied to the surface. When the frog is 

 affected, it must be pared to the quick and dressed with dry caustic 

 powders (quicklime, copperas, bluestone) or carbolic acid and subjected 

 to pressure, the dressing being renewed every daj^ at least. 



EllTSIPELAS. 



This is a specific contagious disease, characterized by spreading 

 dropsical inflammation of the skin and subcuUincous tissues, attended 

 by general fever. It differs from most specific diseases in the absence 

 of a definite period of incubation, a regular (^ourse and duration, and 

 a conferring of immunity on the subject after recovery. On the con- 

 trary, one attack of erysipelas predisposes to another, partly, doubt- 

 less, by the loss of tone and vitality in the affected tissues, but also, 

 perhaps, because of the survival of the infecting germ. 



Cause. — It is no longer to be doubted that the microbes found in the 

 inflammatory product are the true cause of erysipelas, as the disease 

 can be successfully transferred from man to animals and from one ani- 

 mal to another by their means. This transition may be direct or 

 through the medium of infected buildings or other articles. Yet from 

 the varying severity of erysipelas in different outbreaks and localities 

 it has been surmised that various different microbes are operative in 

 this disease, and a perfect knowledge of these might perhaps enable us 

 to divide erysipelas into two or more distinct aifcctions. At present 

 we must recognize it as a specific inflammation due to a bacterial poison 

 and closely allied to septicemia. Erysipelas was formerh* known as 

 surgical when it spread from a wound (through which the germ had 

 gained access) and medical., or idiapnthic., when it started independently 

 of any recognizable lesion. Depending as it does, however, upon a 

 germ distinct from the body, the disease must be looked upon as such, 

 no matter by what channel the germ found an entrance. Erysipelas 

 which follows a wound is usually much more violent than the other 

 form, the difference being doubtless partly due to the lowered vitality 

 of the wounded tissues and to the oxidation and septic changes which 

 are invited on the raw, exposed surface. As apparently idiopathic 

 cases may be due to infection through bites of insects, the small 

 amount of poison inserted maj^ serve to moderate the violence. 



