722 DISEASES AND ABKOBMALITIES OF THE YOUNG ANIMAL. 



accomplished, no injury in the shape of wounds or abrasions is inflicted 

 on the inner surface of the uterus ; and owing chiefly to this fact is the 

 inflammatory reaction and consecutive lochial fever reduced to a 

 minimum among animals, the introduction of poisonous matters (be 

 they vegetable organisms or other injurious substances) into the uterus 

 being rendered much more difficult ; while we frequently find instances 

 of the pyemic process, due to inflammation of the navel and its vessels, 

 among sucking animals, with the parent — except in the case of the Cow 

 — this process is rare. 



SymiHoms. 



The symptoms of this form of arthritis are variously enumerated. 

 The principal is extreme difficulty in moving, which is often noticed 

 without any other premonitory indication. The movements are pain- 

 fully and reluctantly performed, so that the young creature generally 

 persists in lying. Around the epiphyses of the bones, and consequently 

 near the articulations, there is swelling not only of the proper tissues of 

 the joints, but also of the surrounding connective tissue, with hot,, 

 cedematous, and very painful infiltration of the region. From the very 

 commencement the symptoms are most acute, and similar to those of 

 ordinary arthritis ; and they are rendered more marked by the least 

 movement, the lameness being then extremely great ; generally all the 

 joints are involved. The fever is extreme, the respiration hurried, and 

 the visible mucous membranes highly injected; sometimes, and especially 

 with Lambs, there are quasi tetanic spasmodic contractions. The 

 appetite is lost, but thirst is intense, and the suffering creature will 

 often be observed dragging itself along the ground to reach water or the 

 teat of its dam. Not unfrequently there is at the same time a debili- 

 tating diarrhoea or dysentery, and sometimes in Lambs a purulent nasal 

 discharge. 



The progress of the disease is sometimes very rapid, death occurring 

 in twenty-four or forty-eight hours after the manifestation of the earliest 

 symptoms. This rapid course is, however, rare, and the animal may 

 live for twenty or thirty days, or even longer. Eecovery is also rare,, 

 and death is the usual termination ; it is quite exceptional that the 

 disease becomes chronic. The malady usually ends in suppuration, 

 which nearly always becomes general, numerous abscesses forming 

 around the joints, the capsules of which contain pus ; there are also- 

 purulent deposits in other regions of the body. Generally after the 

 fourth day, when the joints are greatly swollen, the hair falls off in 

 these parts, and a yellowish or citron-coloured fluid, then pus, begins- 

 to exude through the skin, which sloughs away ; the ligaments are also- 

 involved in this sloughing process, and at last the articulations are com- 

 pletely disorganised. In some cases the limb is only retained by 

 remains of tendons, the bones being exposed, the articular surfaces 

 destroyed, and the odour almost insupportable. The complications 

 may be pneumonia, pleurisy, pericarditis, and the usual indications of 

 pyaemia. 



In Foals, Bollinger noted, as the chief symptoms, violent fever with 

 very hurried respiration ; the animals did not suck so much as usual, and 

 if lively and attentive at the commencement of the disease, they quickly 

 became extremely weak and torpid. They also became emaciated, and 

 the coat was harsh and lustreless ; often there was nasal catarrh and 

 discharge, tumefaction of the submaxillary lymphatic glands, sometimes- 



