16 SPECIAL EQUINE THERAPY 



Symptoms. The disease begins with a moderate fever, 

 aeeompanied by mild depression. There is anorexia, but 

 frequently polydipsia. When the opportunity is given 

 to drink, the animal likes to prolong the act, by playing 

 with the lips, deeply immersing the muzzle, and so forth. 

 Some salivation may be noted. Examination of the mu- 

 cous membrane of the mouth shows in the early stages 

 reddened areas. The mouth is hot and sensitive. The 

 reddened areas later "run together," and are then the 

 seat of small, hard elevations. They appear in various 

 sizes, from that of a mustard seed to the size of buck-shot. 

 These hardened elevations or nodes appear in "crops" 

 day after day for several days. The earlier ones go over 

 into vesicles, break and discharge either a clear serum or 

 pus. The later ones do the same, successively, until the 

 disease has run its course. The broken down vesicles 

 and pustules rapidly fill with granulations and heal over 

 smoothly in a few days. An occasional extraordinarily 

 large vesicle or pustule, or when several of them coalesce, 

 may leave a deep ulcer which heals more slowly and 

 leaves a "pearly" scar. In some outbreaks of contagious 

 pustular stomatitis the pustules also form on the skin 

 of the lips, and some cases have come to our attention in 

 which the sides of the neck and pectoral region were 

 involved. 



The first cases in an outbreak are as a rule the most 

 virulent, while towards the end the cases are usually 

 very mild. The duration of the disease, from onset of 

 the fever to complete healing of all pustules and vesicles, 

 is from one to two weeks, depending upon the severity 

 of the attack and upon the care which the animal re- 

 ceives. The fever subsides after the third day. Some 

 deaths have been reported. Fatal cases are extremely 

 rare, and are no doubt due to septic infection of a sec- 

 ondary character when they do occur. 



