458 
Foot-and-Mouth Disease. 
These peculiar bodies (bacteria and vibriones) are developed in 
fluids which contain a small quantity of animal matter, and they 
may therefore be taken as an evidence of decomposition. The 
fact of their existence in the blood and secretions of a living 
animal is always significant, but the discovery of them some- 
times after the fluids have been separated from the living body 
is a matter of no moment. 
Bacteria and vibriones have been detected in the limpid fluid 
of the vesicles with small masses of living germinal matter, and 
in the discharge from the eyes minute moving bodies have also 
been seen. 
Microscopic examination of the blood reveals the presence of 
organic bodies which are always associated with a diseased con- 
dition of the fluid. First, the red blood-discs, on which the 
colour of the blood depends, are covered with minute projecting 
points, instead of being circular in form and smooth on the 
surface. There is also an excess of the colourless corpuscles, and 
there are also small spheroidal and elliptical bodies, which move 
rapidly in all directions, and sometimes very numerous bacteria 
and vibriones are found in large numbers in the advanced stage 
of the disease ; their presence in large numbers is indicative of the 
malignant form of the affection, in which the condition is rather 
that of blood-poisoning than simple foot-and-mouth complaint. 
Milk taken from cows affected witli the disease presents ap- 
pearances which are very characteristic, but which vary much 
according to the stage of the disease. Most of the specimens 
examined had a low specific gravity, 1024, although in some 
instances when the quantity which was yielded was very small 
the normal specific gravity, 1032. was reached, and now and 
then exceeded, but in these instances the fluid was abnormal in 
character, being charged with large exudation cells, and, what is 
more significant, bacteria and vibriones were abundantly present. 
The drawing which is represented in the next illustration was 
taken from a specimen of milk obtained from a cow which had 
suffered from the disease for ten days, and it by no means 
exaggerates the proportion of diseased elements in the milk. 
In cases where the udder is seriously affected, the secretion of 
milk is almost arrested, and the little fluid which is obtained 
is highly charged with inflammatory products. Nearly all the 
specimens of milk obtained from cows affected with foot-and- 
mouth disease, however, contained more or less of the abnormal 
elements represented in the drawing, and in some the pus- 
like cells remained for several weeks after the animals had quite 
recovered. 
Boiling the milk from diseased cows has considerable effect 
in retarding its decomposition, but it does not arrest the move- 
