Infective Gastro- Enteritis in Calves, Lambs and Foals. 145 



Guinea-pig like the calf showed the diplococci in the blood. 

 Nikolski who studied the affection in lambs seeks to incriminate 

 both micrococci and bacilli. 



It is premature to specify any particular microbe as the sole 

 cause of the affection. It seems not improbable that bacterial 

 ferments of one or more specific kinds, which in a healthy animal 

 have no injurious effect, may by special combination, or by growth 

 in a mucosa in a given morbid condition, acquire properties which 

 render them not only violently irritating, but may retain such 

 properties so as to render them activefy contagious. . In this con- 

 dition they may overcome the resistance of the most healthy 

 stomach and bowels and attack all young animals into which they 

 may secure an entrance. Certain it is that the infection may 

 persist in the same stable for years, will enter a new herd with a 

 newly purchased cow or calf bought out of a previously infected 

 lot, and will follow the watershed and affect in succession the 

 different herds drinking from a stream as it flows downward. 



The similarity of the germ found by Jensen to the bacillus coli 

 communis, suggests that in this as in a number of other con- 

 tagious affections a pathogenic sport from this common saprophyte 

 is at least one of the microbian factors in this disease. 



Symptoms. These may set in just after birth but usually the 

 disease occurs within the two first weeks of life. When delayed 

 for a few days after birth it may be preceded by some constipation, 

 the faeces appearing hard, moulded, and covered with mucus. 

 This is especially the case when the meconium has been retained 

 and has proved a cause of irritation. The young animal is care- 

 less of the teat or refuses it (or the pail if brought up by hand), 

 yawns and seems weary. The abdominal muscles are tense and 

 the belly msy be swollen if fermentation has already set in but 

 this is rarely excessive. Straining to defecate usually causes 

 eructations of an acid odor, and sometimes vomiting of solid sour- 

 smelling clots. Abdominal pain may be manifested by uneasy 

 movements of the tail and hind limbs, by looking toward the 

 flank and even by plaintive cries. This is followed within six 

 hours by liquid dejections, at first merely soft, slimy and sour 

 but soon complicated by a peculiar odor of rotten cheese which 

 becomes increasingly offensive as the malady advances. The 

 tail and hips become soaked with the discharges and as the 

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