370 Veterinary Medicine. 



INFECTIOUS CONJUNCTIVITIS IN HERBIVORA. 

 ENZOOTIC OPHTHALMIA. 



Causes : infection, pollen, soil emanation, winter or summer ; cases of 

 extension by infection. Cattle, sheep, goats, ponies. Accessory irritants. 

 Symptoms : severe purulent conjunctivitis. Papillary and follicular hyper- 

 trophy, uniform redness, protruding head, opacities, erosions, ulcers, pho- 

 tophobia, staphyloma. Treatment : rest, darkness, coolness, elevated head, 

 purgative, diuretics, sedatives ; locally solution of pyoktanin, sublimate, 

 silver nitrate, boric or salicylic acid, atropia, puncture. 



Causes. This affection which attacks at once or in rapid suc- 

 cession a large portion or the whole of a herd or flock, is by many- 

 held to be infectious while others attribute it to irritant pollen 

 or soil emanation. Its origin from vegetation in flower is held 

 to be supported by its greater frequency in summer than in 

 winter, and the few outbreaks seen in winter are attributed to 

 pollen preserved in the hay. But other things being equal, 

 organized germs are preserved, multiplied and diffused to a 

 greater extent in the hot season so that the origin of the dis- 

 ease from a purely microbian source is at least equally plausible. 

 Certain outbreaks indeed show the transmission of the infection 

 in a most unequivocal manner. A cow suffering from the 

 affection was brought into a stable occupied by a herd previously 

 sound, and in a few days the cow standing next her was attacked, 

 and thereafter a number of others in rapid succession. A small 

 number of cattle from the Buffalo Stock Yards, but which had 

 sore eyes on their arrival in Tompkins Co., N. Y., were placed in 

 a sound herd and the disease spread rapidly to the other members 

 of the herd. Similarly in both sheep and cattle the writer has seen 

 the disease prevail in one herd or flock, while the adjacent herd 

 or flock, separated only by a good stone wall and subject to ex- 

 actly the same condition of soil, water, exposure, vegetation and 

 pollen has entirely escaped. Kayser has seen it introduced into 

 a herd' by a, bull ; Fiinfstiick saw a herd of 300 head attacked in 

 a few days, and Klink 20 out of a herd of 40 head in 14 

 days. Trumbower has never seen an animal suffer a second 

 time. This is the common experience and would suggest an 

 acquired immunity, yet the comparative rarity of the disease for- 

 bids a positive conclusion, without further experience. Menard 

 saw an outbreak among the ponies in the Jardin d' Acclimatation, 



