246 



Rinderpest. 



In such cases the emphysema is first indicated on both sides 

 of the vertebrae, then on the neck, shoulders and thorax. 



The heart's action is at first sufficiently strong, but grad- 

 ually weakens. The constantly increased frequency in pulse 

 is at first 50-60, later 80-100 and even more per minute. The 

 pulse is weak, small, and toward the end of the disease wiry. 



The leucocytes increase in the blood with the onset of the fever 

 up to the fifth day of the affection. From this time on their number 

 diminishes to 4,000 per cubic millimeter in the unfavorable cases. If 

 the animal remains alive their number increases towards the sixteenth 

 or seventeenth day of the disease to 28,000-30,000, which is again 

 followed by a rapid diminution, whereupon by the twentieth day the 

 normal condition is re-established. 



The continuous fever usu- 

 ally reaches its height on 

 the fifth or sixth day, the 

 daily differences varying by 

 one degree, and rapidly drops 

 with the onset of the diarrhea 

 in the severe cases to below 

 normal; whereas if there is 

 an indication of improvement 

 the fever subsides gradually 

 (Fig. 44). The height of the 

 fever does not always cor- 

 respond with the severity of 

 the other symptoms. 



In some cases, particularly 

 in range cattle, the skin be- 

 comes affected in a peculiar 

 manner. Two or three days 

 after the appearance of the 



Fig. 44. Fever curve in rinderpest, follow- 

 ing a subcutaneous injection of a drop of 

 virulent blood ; three year old cow. (Af- 

 ter Nicolle and Adil-Bey.) 



disease, sometimes even earlier, small protuberances and 

 vesicles develop on the neck, before and behind the shoulders, 

 along the vertebral column, on the shanks, on the udder or on 

 the scrotum, and in the flank. Over these areas the hairs stick 

 together, later thick scabs cover the wrinkled skin. In case 

 the animal improves the scabs are thrown off, the epithelium 

 desquamates, at the same time the hair falls out, and sometimes 

 the animals may even lose the hair from the tips of their tails. 



Eussian authors and also Zlamal, laid great stress on the affection 

 of the skin which occurs quite frequently in range cattle, and accord- 

 ingly they distinguished an exanthematous form of rinderpest, from 

 one in which no exanthema developed. In confirmation of older con- 

 ceptions, they consider the appearance of the exanthema a favorable 

 prognostic indication. The skin affection however which develops in 

 some of the outbreaks quite frequently, in others but rarely, may 

 exceptionally occur also in Western European cattle and in spite. of 

 this favorable symptom the disease may terminate unfavorably. (The 

 exanthema was frequently observed in Hungary in the outbreak of 1852, 



