Cirrhosis in Cattle, Sheep and Horses fed on Senecio. 523 



ill effects. Yet in the New Zealand experiments on the lands that 

 had proved so destructive to cattle, it was found that after a year 

 of intermittent pasturage, six weeks at a time, they began to die 

 with all symptoms and lesions of Senecio poisoning and, very soon 

 after, 5 per cent, of a flock of 2000 head had perished. The mor- 

 tality was greatly lessened though not altogether stopped when 

 the flock had been removed two months from the Senecio pasture. 



The affected sheep became dull, with indifference to food, 

 drowsiness, remaining apart from the flock, and thick, red urine 

 (even like black coffee). In the later, violent stages of the dis- 

 ease there was slight hyperthermia (106° F.), hurried breathing, 

 grunting with expiration, tenderness along the back, coma and 

 yellowness of the skin and mucosae, and diarrhoea. 



In the Montana ictero-hcematuria there are the same symptoms 

 together with the following : aimless wandering, sagging of the 

 loins, frequent, painful urination, urine very dark, faeces in large 

 solid masses covered with mucus (rarely diarrhoea, ), in protract- 

 ed cases dropsical effusions on the sides of the head and neck, 

 the sheep maintains a recumbent or crouching position and in- 

 variably dies. 



Lesions in sheep. The early lesions are mainly those of icterus. 

 In New Zealand many sheep from a Senecio pasture, though 

 shipped and killed in fine condition and apparent health, fur- 

 nished the familiar yellow carcass, and numbers shipped in 

 apparent health perished on the way, the animal proving unequal 

 to the excitement of travel. The same is true of sheep from the 

 pathogenic Montana pastures. 



The liver in some sudden New Zealand attacks was pronounced 

 congested, with thick, dark, tarry bile, but in others, more ad- 

 vanced or chronic, it proved smaller, firmer, cirrhotic, mottled, 

 and at points grayish. Microscopic examination showed exten- 

 sive fibroid degeneration essentially interlobular. In many the 

 liver felt hard, tough, and almost gritty under the knife, and the 

 surface showed pitting with abnormal adherence of the capsule. 

 In general the liver is somewhat less fibroid than in the ox, there 

 is a much greater abundance of new connective tissue cells, sug- 

 gestive of more rapid growth, and fatty degeneration of the he- 

 patic and even of the connective tissue is more common. Hsem- 

 orrhagic areas are frequent and excessive congestion of the kid- 



