DEFINITION— HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION 3 



name for the disease in Denmark, arising from the 

 prevalence of the condition in cattle on that island. 



" Kaltbrandigkeit," according to Meyer, is the com- 

 mon term for Johne's disease among Swiss farmers, in 

 whose stock it occurs. The term merely describes the 

 symptoms of " thirst without feverishness." 



Definition. — A chronic specific enteritis, affecting 

 cattle, more rarely sheep and deer, and probably goats 

 and allied animals, caused by the multiplication, in the 

 intestinal mucous membrane and mesenteric glands, of 

 a specific micro-organism known as "Johne's bacillus," 

 which produces a diffuse thickening of the bowel and 

 an interference with food absorption, leading to 

 diarrhoea and wasting. 



History and Distribution.— The older writers on 

 veterinary subjects devoted most of their attention 

 to horses and horsemanship. From the time of 

 Solleysel in France and Blundeville in England, both 

 of whom wrote about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, the authors of numerous works on farriery 

 that we have consulted merely give, as an appendix, 

 a few prescriptions for common ailments of cattle. 

 Skellet, in 1806, wrote a book on " Parturition in Cow^s 

 and Diseases of Neat Cattle," in which he makes no 

 reference to any condition comparable with Johne's 

 disease. Some of these old writers, however, do 

 mention that certain forms of diarrhoea in cattle are 

 very chronic and incurable, and are " due to rotten- 

 ness." 



Hurtrel d'Arboval, who, in 1826, compiled, in French, 

 a dictionary of the veterinary art, mentions, under the 

 head of "Enteritis in Cattle," a thickening of the 

 mucous membrane of the large and small intestines 

 associated with chronic diarrhoea ; but some of his 



