ACTINOMYCOSIS. 



127 



may appear, may be hard, as described, or soft, and may, like 

 those of scirrhous cord, degenerate, with the formation of pus, in 

 which the fungus can be found. 



TREATMENT. — The treatment successfully adopted was as 

 follows : ^Learning that the animal had been getting J oz. of 

 iodide of potassium daily, and seeing that the amount had failed 

 to check the course of the disease, I began by giving 2 oz. of that 

 drug daily in the 'drinking water ; and found after three days of 

 this treatment that the tongue had decreased in size, was softer 

 to the touch, had lost its foetid smell ; and that the patient was 

 able to eat better. During the following 38 days, I gave the 

 animal 52 oz. of iodide of potassium, without producing any of 

 the characteristic signs of iodine-irritation in the system, such as 

 running at the eyes and nose, which are quickly apparent in man 



Fig. 45- - 



-Nodule of actinomycosis 

 (actual size). 



from an overdose of this medicine. The only untoward effect 

 produced in this case by the immense doses I was giving and 

 varied ficcording to circumstances, was difficulty in staling. This 

 complication was in no way serious, and soon passed off after the 

 removal of its exciting cause. Every day, after having thrown 

 the horse, I scraped with a finger nail all the exposed nodules I 

 could reach, and applied to the wounds in the tongue, at different 

 times, tincture of iodine and eucalyptus oil daily, and a solution 

 of 20 grains of chloride of zinc to the oimce of water, every second 

 day. The last-mentioned application was by far the most effective 

 of the three. As long as the horse's tongue was so bad that he 

 was unable to eat enough grass to sustain life, I gave him daily 

 a dozen or more raw eggs. Under this treatment, the nodules in 

 the free part of the tongue, and which had first manifested their 

 presence in the substance of that organ only by yellow patches on 

 its surface, gradually separated themselves from the surrounding 

 tissue, and came away in the form of hard, granular nodules. 



