282 Diseases of Cattle, 



sia, but it is less destructive and less contagious. Animals 

 are found after death to have the spleen enlarged and soft- 

 ened, the fat is yellow, the blood fluid, and the kidneys 

 broken down. 



Causes. — The Texan cattle themselves do not appear to 

 suffer from this disease in a violent form ; but it proves very 

 fatal when introduced into Northern herds. Its contagion is 

 communicated through the dung, and the roads, pastures and 

 streams convey it into other neighborhoods. It is destroyed 

 at once by frost, and, apparently, one Northern animal cannot 

 give it to another. 



Symptoms. — Four or five weeks may pass after the poison 

 has been taken into the system before it shows itself. There 

 will be at first a moderate fever, showing an increase of tem- 

 perature to 103° to 107°. 



This is followed in five or six days by dullness, drooping 

 of the head, arched back, cough, trembling, jerking of the 

 muscles, the horn hot, and the appetite and cud lost. 



The eyes become glassy and watery, the urine turns to a 

 deep red or black from the blood which is . in it, and the 

 dunsc is hard and often coated with blood. When the mouth 

 and rectum are examined, they are found to be of a dark red 

 or coppery color. The animal dies in a stupor or in convul- 

 sions. 



In 1871 the United States Government published an elabo- 

 rate study of this disease, prepared by Prof. John Gamgee 

 and other eminent observers. They found it to occur in two 

 forms. The first is insidious, latent and usually fatal, and 

 the more frequent form among Southern cattle ; while the 

 more active form is found in Northern herds. 



After death there is only one diseased condition of the or- 

 gans which is invariably present. The fourth stomach, how- 

 ever, is "almost invariably '' distinctly inflamed, and the 



