PREVENTION, SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT 2 o 



serum of animals immunized with Pasteur's attenuated cultures 

 and also with attenuated cultures themselves has proven curative in 

 man. 



Arthritis, Acute Infectious— Acute Articular Rheumatism. 



It will be necessary to discriminate between various affections 

 which are classed under the head of acute articular rheumatism, 

 and also to define the latter in order to treat the subject properly. 

 In man and animals there is supposed to be a specific disease caused 

 by a specific organism and having specific clinical features which we 

 recognize as acute articular rheumatism. The fact that several 

 different germs may cause the disease is not improbable. If this 

 is so, then the disease should receive different names according to 

 its etiological organism, as may come to pass. It is now known that 

 many conditions simulating acute articular rheumatism are caused 

 by various specific infections — as in man, by gonorrhea and scarlet 

 fever; and these are called gonorrheal or scarlatinal arthritis ac- 

 cordingly. So again in animals, the commonest form of so-called 

 acute articular rheumatism of cows is due to parturient sepsis and 

 follows in a few weeks or months some septic state due to abortion 

 or parturition. This should be called a parturient septic arthritis. 

 Then among new-born animals, there is an acute suppurative ar- 

 thritis due to infection of the umbilical cord and occurring soon 

 after birth. In young animals an acute non-suppurative arthritis 

 arises also from other infections, as from enteritis, pneumonia, and 

 from exposure to the infection of epizootic abortion. Rickets is 

 thought to predispose to the latter condition. 



True acute articular rheumatism is comparatively rare, when 

 these various specific farms of septic arthritis are eliminated. True 

 articular rheumatism we distinguish by its not being due to any 

 other specific infection, by its not being a suppurative arthritis, and 

 by the following positive characteristics:- — It is a febrile disease 

 coming on suddenly and attacking several large joints, either 



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