244 TEXAS FEVER 



Southern bred cattle, as he had bought them of a dealer in 

 Vermont. More recently another case of this disease pro- 

 duced in the same way has been reported. 



§ 183. Symptoms. In the acute type of the disease 

 which occurs during the hot summer months, the onset is sud- 

 den and usually all animals exposed to the same infection 

 together come down at the same time. The first indication of 

 the disease is a rise of temperature, at first higher in the after- 

 noon than morning, but this oscillation is minimised later in 

 the course of the disease when the temperature remains high. 

 The temperature rarely rises above 107° F. With a clinical 

 thermometer the temperature can be detected two or more 

 days before there are other symptoms. The respiration may 

 rise to between 60 and 100 and the pulse may range between 

 80 and no per minute. Late in the disease there may be 

 hemoglobinuria. Smith and Kilborne found it in 33 out of 

 46 fatal cases in which urine was found in the bladder. The 

 passing of the colored urine before death was noted in but four 

 of their cases. In one of these which showed hemoglobinuria 

 four days before death, the urine in the bladder was clear at 

 post mortem. As this condition seems to depend upon the 

 rapidity of the destruction of the red blood corpuscles, a slow 

 disintegration may enable other organs to dispose of the color- 

 ing matter which in a rapid destruction of the blood much of 

 it may be thrown into the urine. The urine contains small 

 quantities of albumin. At first the specific gravity maj^ be high 

 but later it ranges from loio to 1020 and fails to effervesce 

 with acids. The color varies according to the quantit}- of 

 hemoglobin. As a rule there is marked constipation during 

 the high fever. There is loss of appetite and usually cessation 

 of rumination with the high fever. The blood is thin and 

 pale. The high temperature, hemoglobinuria and thinness 

 of the blood are quite diagnostic s\'mptoms of the acute type. 



The course of the disease may vary, but the continuous 

 high temperature does not usuall}^ last for more than ten days. 

 Death often intervenes in from five to eight days. In the 

 mild, nonfatal or chronic tj'pe which was first pointed out by 

 Smith and Kilborne and which occurs in the late summer or 



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