5i6 Veterinary Medicine. 



Debility doubtless renders an animal more susceptible, yet the 

 disease usually kills nearly all horses attacked, excepting such as 

 have been immunized. This is the same for casual and inoculated 

 cases. When, however, the virulence has been lessened by 

 culture or by passing through the body of an unsuitable animal 

 the results are very uncertain ; some horses it will kill, while in 

 others it produces a slight and harmless fever. 



Forms. Two leading forms of the disease are known : ist, 

 the lung sickness {Dunpaardziekte) , and 2nd, the head sickness 

 (Dikkopziekte). A variety of this last is blue tongue (Blautong), 

 which has been confounded with glossauthrax. 



Symptoms. The lung sickness may appear as a fulminant affec- 

 tion following on the usual incubation of about eight days. Sud- 

 denly, in the midst of apparently full health and vigor, the 

 breathing becomes accelerated and dyspnceic ; this encreases for 

 about an hour, then the patient staggers, falls, ejects a mass 

 of white froth from mouth and nostrils and dies. When death 

 is more delayed, there may be noted a rigor, and in the even- 

 ing a rise of temperature to 103" F., lowering a little next 

 morning and rising again toward night, yet making an encrease 

 day by day until near the end, when it becomes sub-normal. 

 Death in such cases occurs on the third or fourth day, preceded 

 by great prostration, hurried, labored breathing, dark red or 

 cyauosed mucosae, loud rattling over the large bronchia or lower 

 end of the trachea, coughing and dropping of a serous fluid from 

 the nose, or accumulation of white froth around nostrils and 

 mouth. The froth soon condenses in part into a straw-colored 

 liquid, which collects in considerable quantity. The abundance 

 of froth blocking the air passages produces death by suffocation. 



In the head cedem.a, the muzzle, lips, head and neck become the 

 seat of excessive exudation, the swelling of the face drawing 

 back the lips so as to expose the teeth of the lower jaw. The 

 skin is rendered tense and exudes the straw-colored serum, as do 

 also the buccal and pituitary mucosae. 



In blue tongue the exudate is concentrated in the lingual organ, 

 which swells to an enormous size, forcing the jaws and lips apart, 

 and hanging out as a dark blue, cold mass. A foul, liquid mix- 

 ture of saliva and exudate drivels from the mouth. The pressure 

 on the larynx may cause marked stertor, advancing to a.sphyxia. 



While the.se three types may .seem to be distinct and uncompli- 



