Protozoan Cattle Fever. Texas Fever. Paludism of Cattle. 587 



Definition. A specific fever of cattle, enzootic during the warm 

 seasons in the low, malarious grounds and wooded or uncultivated 

 districts of different countries, caused by a protozoon in the blood 

 and red globules, which is conveyed from animal to animal by 

 ticks, and leading to engorgement of the spleen and liver, de- 

 struction of the red globules, hsemoglobinuria, and oligocythaemia. 



Historic Notes. This malady has doubtless existed from time 

 immemorial in different malaria districts of the Old World, where 

 the wood and moor ill is now coming to be recognized as a proto- 

 zoan tick-borne disease. The malady exists in Roumania (Star- 

 covici. Babes, Gavrilescu) Turkey (NicoUe, Adil-Bey), Sardinia 

 .(San Felici, I,oi) , Southern France (L,ignieres), Italy (Celli, 

 Santori), Algiers, Tunis (lyignieres), Finland (Krogins, Von 

 HoUens), West Indies, Mexico, Nicaragua, United States of 

 Columbia, South America as far south as the Argentine Repub- 

 lic, German East Africa (Koch), Transvaal (Theiler), S. Aus- 

 tralia (Pound ) . In Australia imported European cattle found the 

 infection waiting for them in the uncultivated bottoms. In 

 America it doubtless prevailed on the seaboard and islands of 

 the Gulf of Mexico from the time of the importation of Spanish 

 cattle, but for the first definite account of it we are indebted to 

 Dr. James Pease, who records the widespread destruction of the 

 native herds in Lancaster Co., Penn., in connection with the in- 

 troduction of cattle from the south. None of the southern cattle 

 died, but wherever they traveled, the native stock perished all 

 but universally. Other droves from South Carolina were equally 

 destructive to all cattle along their track. The recorded symp- 

 toms of anorexia, great weakness, often inability to stand, trem- 

 bling, groaning, bloody urine, bleeding from the nose, costiveness, 

 congested kidneys, and decomposed, incoagulable blood serve to 

 identify the disease. 



Later, whenever southern cattle were moved north, the disease 

 followed their trail. Florida cattle left infection along their 

 route until they reached the border of Virginia, where it usually 

 ceased. When taken from the Georgia mountains to the low- 

 lands, they died without infecting the native stock, and, when 

 such native stock of the lowlands were moved to the hills or the 

 liorth, they conveyed the fever to the stock among which they 

 came, though themselves well and improving all the time 



