126 MALIGNANT TUMOUKS. 



The only cases of actinomycosis which I have read of in the horse 

 are : one in the skin and underlying tissues of the thigh, subsequent 

 to a wound, reported by Perroncito ; and instances in the tongue, 

 described respectively by Zschokke, Truelsen, Israel, Baracz, and 

 Gruber. 



SYMPTOMS.— In the only case I have met with in the horse, the 

 tongue, on the first day that I saw the animal, was swollen to at 

 least four times its thickness in health ; was as hard to the touch 

 as a piece of cartilage ; and had lost all its power of motion, except 

 a slight backward and forward movement. The end of the tongue 

 had a mottled appearance, being covered partly with purple patches 

 of congestion; partly with yellow patches. Further back, there 

 were two deep grooves, one on each side, corresponding in size to 

 the back teeth, which had evidently excavated them, during the 

 backward and forward movements of the hard and greatly swollen 

 tongue. Connecting the front portions of these grooves was a 

 transverse furrow, which was so deep (at least, two inches) that I 

 had to be very careful in manipulating the free end of the tongue, 

 lest I might detach it from the fixed portion. This transverse 

 groove contained a comparatively large quantity of hard yellow 

 nodules (Fig. 45) of fibrous tissue. The wounded surface 

 of the tongue was of a very dark red, almost black colour, 

 and showed no granulations or any other signs of the forma- 

 tion of pus. The horse, a handsome three-year-old thorough- 

 bred entire, was able, with the greatest difficulty, to eat only a 

 very small amount of grass ; for he " quidded " by far the greater 

 proportion of the gi-ass which he took into his mouth. He was quite 

 unable to eat hay or oats, and there was a constant and copious 

 discharge of saliva from his lips. Consequently, he was in terribly 

 bad condition, and appeared to be on the point of dying of starva- 

 tion. The tongue was extremely painful to the touch; apparently 

 because the nerves of the part, on manipulation, became pressed 

 ag:ainst the hard fibrous nodules which were embedded in the tongue 

 and which I shall allude to more fully further on. The mouth 

 exhaled a stinking odour. 



Friedberger and Frohner state that " when the tongue is affected, 

 prehension and mastication are impeded. The organ is swollen, 

 painful to the touch, and there is an abundant flow of saliva." These 

 writers mention that although the tumours (which vary in 

 size horn a pin's head to a broad bean) are generally soft, they are 

 sometimes of a fibrous consistency and of a greyish white colour ; 

 resembling, in fact, those of the case I treated. Crookshank states 

 that actinomycosis in the tongue appears " most commonly in 

 the form of nodules or wart-like patches under the mucous mem- 



