PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 491 



SUSCEPTIBLE SPECIES.— Animals of the bovine spe- 

 cies are very often afifected, but the disease is also observed 

 in the hog, the horse and the sheep. It was seen once in the 

 dog by Heim. Schreiber has pointed it out in the cat, and 

 Montfallet has mentioned cases in the llama and the guanaco. 

 It has been reported as having been seen in the elephant. 

 In man it was noticed for the first time by Lucet in 1888. 

 Since that time it has been the subject of numerous inves- 

 tigations, especially by the practitioners of Lyons. 



HISTORY. — The clinical aspects of the disease have 

 been recognized for a long time in veterinary medicine. In 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century, a disease which in 

 most cases was actinomycosis was described by veterinarians 

 under the names of "osteosarcoma," "osteoporosis," "spina 

 ventosa," "cancer," and "farcy of the bones." About the 

 middle of the century Langenback (1845) ^^''^^ Leber (1857) 

 found radiating bodies in osseous tumors of man, which they 

 regarded as crystals and to which they attached no real im- 

 portance. Davain^ (1850) and Laboulene (1853) studied 

 osseous tumors which today seem to have been actinomy- 

 costic. Up to that time nobody had any suspicion that these 

 tumors were of a parasitic nature. Rivolta, who in 1868 

 found "elements in the form of little rods" in the tumors of 

 bovine animals, looked upon them as crystals. In 1875, 

 Perroncito again found the crystals of Rivolta, but he was of 

 the opinion that they were cryptogamic productions. Ri- 

 volta, returning then to his previous studies, confirmed Per- 

 roncito's views and gave complementary indications. 



The disease was studied in Germany. In 1870, Hahn 

 found an ox attacked with "wooden tongue," an analogous 

 growth to those pointed out by Rivolta. In 1877, Bollinger 

 established the constant presence of the radiating parasite in 

 the tumors of the maxilla. He made a botanical study of the 

 parasite and named it "actinomyces" and the disease "ac- 

 tinomycosis." 



