452 Veterinary Medicine. 



SYMPTOMS OF TUBERCULOSIS IN SWINE. 



In young pigs, infected by the milk of the dam, there are gen- 

 eral unthriftiness, stunted growth, emaciation and unhealthy 

 skin, encrusted with a dark unctuous matter or scurf , as in chronic 

 hog cholera. Temperature is variable on successive days, or 

 times of the same day. Digestive disorder is manifested by slight 

 colics, diarrhoea, vomiting, tympany and abdominal tenderness. 

 The pig becomes pot-bellied, with hollowness of the flanks in 

 front of the iliac bones, and manipulation may detect the tuber- 

 culous bowels and mesentery in the form of a knotted mass. 



Roloff deiscribes a caseous colitis with ulceration of the mucosa, 

 which is probably tuberculous. 



Enlargement of the superficial lymph glands (pharyngeal, in- 

 guinal, prescapular) may be present. Traumatic infection of the 

 castration sore and inguinal glands has been noted. As the dis- 

 ease becomes generalized, implicating the lungs, there is a dry 

 paroxysmal cough and hurried breathing, becoming more op- 

 pressed on the slightest exertion. If quiet and thin enough for 

 auscultation and percussion the usual morbid lung sounds can be 

 heard. Unlike cattle, pigs are very subject to muscular and inter- 

 muscular tubercles, and as there is a general tendency to casea- 

 tion, these are usually to be found as saccular cavities with soft, 

 sometimes liquid, caseated contents. The bones and joints may 

 suffer, as in cattle. The tonsils are usually enlarged and even 

 caseous. The outer auditory meatus and the interior of the eye 

 have been found affected. Cases affecting the brain were mani- 

 fested by nervous disorder, rearing up on the fence, turning in 

 a circle, spasms, rolling of the eyes, paresis and paralysis, often 

 hemiplegic. When one or other of these indications of local dis- 

 ease is found associated with the general disorder of the lungs or 

 bowels, in a herd fed on raw meat scraps, milk, or the soiled 

 food of tuberculous animals, the evidence is strongly in favor of 

 the local tubercle corresponding to the symptoms. It is noticea- 

 ble that diagnosis by microscopic examination is difficult and 

 uncertain because of the relatively very small number of the 

 bacilli. In the mature pig the disease may be difficult of diagno- 

 sis without tuberculin, and a post mortem examination may be 

 necessary to identify the disease in the herd. 



