Petechial Fever in Cattle. 189 



they may ooze a yellowish liquid or blood, the surface becomes 

 depilated, scaly and rough, chaps and cracks appear, going on, 

 it may be, to deep fissures, more particularly at the flexures of 

 the joints, on the throat or muzzle, or on other points that are 

 subjected to pressure. Necrosis of great patches of skin is not 

 uncommon, and these sloughing off leave large wounds with un- 

 healthy, indolent surface and little disposed to rapid healing. , 



The petechise show early on the muzzle, the nasal and buccal 

 mucosae, and on other mucous membranes. Exudations also 

 appear and a serous, often bloody, discharge escapes from the 

 nose and concretes in colored encrustations around the nostrils. 

 The nose may be obstructed causing the animal to breathe 

 through the open mouth, protruding the tongue which is often 

 also the seat of extensive swelling, discoloration and induration. 



As the disease advances there is encreased dullness and prostra- 

 tion, marked emaciation, and anaemia, sunken eyes, encrusted 

 eyelids, extensive areas of depilation including even the long 

 hairs of the tail, and quite often an abundant bloody diarrhoea. 



The affection may last for 24 to 40 days and under rational 

 treatment the majority survive. There remains, however, in a 

 certain number of cases, a permanent enlargement and fibrous 

 induration from the organization of the exudate. 



Diagnosis. A fully developed case is easily recognized. The 

 fever and constitutional disorder, complicated by petechise on the 

 mucosae and skin ; the extensive swellings suddenly formed, 

 oozing serum or blood, and tending to fissures and necrosis ; and 

 the discharging of blood from the nose, bowels, kidneys and udder, 

 in the absence of the bacilli of anthrax, emphysematous anthrax, 

 malignant oedema, and wildeseuche ; the slower progress ; the 

 low mortality ; the occurrence on a damp, springy, or imperme- 

 able soil, or one known to produce this disease ; and especially if . 

 in late summer or autumn, become virtually pathognomonic. 



Prevention. Seclude cattle in late summer and autumn 

 especially, from soils known to be productive of this affection and 

 above all from damp wet clays, underlaid by hard-pan, from 

 swamps, from drying up ponds and basins, from wet river 

 bottoms and deltas and from springy fields generally. Fields of 

 this kind may be reserved for cultivated crops or for raising hay. 

 The fundamental remedy is thorough drainage, and a subsequent 

 abandonment of the land for a year or two to other crops to allow 



