Specific Contagious Diseases. 93 



may follow later, into which we cannot enter here, and 

 exhausting liquid discharges from the bowels and kidneys, 

 tympanies and abortions are frequent results. Death may 

 take place early, from suffocation, when both lungs are 

 involved, or may be delayed six weeks or more. Slight 

 attacks, common in the Northern States in winter, may 

 only cause a few days of fever, but usually leave encysted 

 masses of dead, diseased tissue in the lungs, that render the 

 apparently recovered animal dangerous to others for long 

 after. 



The percentage of deaths and permanent destruction to 

 health is fifty or sixty, or when all the more susceptible 

 animals have perished it may be reduced much lower. 



Treatment. Tliis disease is much more amenable to 

 treatment than rinderpest, but to preserve the sick is no 

 less reprehensible, as the poison is more subtle, more dif- 

 fusible through the atmosphere, is hidden unsuspected for 

 a greater length of time in the body of its victim, and 

 when manifested is far more liable to be mistaken for other 

 diseases (pneumonia, pleurisy, bronchitis). No treatment 

 should ever be allowed, except in perfectly secluded build- 

 ings, far from roads, where no strange men or animals can 

 get access, and in a constantly disinfected atmosphere. 



In the -early stages, refrigerant and diuretic salts (liquor 

 of the acetate of ammonia, nitre, bisulphite of soda) with 

 aconite may be given ; injections of warm water or mild 

 laxatives (Epsom salt), used to regulate the bowels, and 

 blisters applied to the sides of the chest (mustard and oil 

 of turpentine). Later, when prostration sets in, stimulants 

 (sweet spirits of nitre, wine, aromatic ammonia, etc.) and 

 tonics (gentian, cinchona, cascarilla, boneset, sulphate of 

 iron or copper, mineral acids, etc.) are called for. Anti- 

 septics are useful, especially such as can be inhaled in the 

 air (sulphur fumes, carbolic acid vapor or spray) and thus 

 reach the seat of disease. 



