466 
Foot-and-Mouth Disease. 
mine is the precise nature of the disease which he is required to 
treat : without this knowledge his proceeding must be of the 
empirical order. When dealing with foot-and-mouth complaint, 
he has to remember that the affection belongs to the class ex- 
anthemata, or eruptive diseases, and that consequently a charac- 
teristic development of pimples, vesicles, or pustules, is part of 
the natural course of the disease through its various stages. 
Small-pox is distinguished by the successive appearance of the 
three kinds of eruption referred to ; foot-and-mouth complaint 
is marked by one kind, the vesicular. The virus of the affection 
acts rapidly ; symptoms of fever are manifested soon after the 
introduction of the poison into the system ; the internal tempera- 
ture rises three or four degrees ; the secretion of milk in milch 
cows is diminished ; and experience proves that some of the 
poison is excreted in this way very early in the disease. 
Vesicles, or blisters as they would be called in popular lan- 
guage, begin to appear in from thirty-six to forty-eight hours 
after infection, as a rule, on the tongue, inside the lips, and often 
on the skin, especially of the hind legs, immediately above the 
hoofs, at the heels, and frequently at the junction of the digits. 
General irritation exists all over the mucous and tegumental 
surface, and the epithelium is so far loosened that it may be 
removed by slight friction. The tendency to desquamation of 
the epithelial tissue is always most marked in the mucous mem- 
brane lining the cavity of the mouth, and in the modified 
integument which is reflected over the terminal portions of the 
extremities. The first result is unimportant ; but the separation 
of the hoof from its secreting membrane is, under all circum- 
stances, particularly in cattle, a very serious, and not uncom- 
monly fatal, consequence of the disease, and should be, as far as 
possible, guarded against. 
In a few days the poison of the disease, which, in the 
act of elimination from the system, leads to the develop- 
ment of the effects referred to, is, in favourable cases, com- 
pletely expelled, the fever subsides, the loosened epithelium 
is rapidly replaced by new deposits of normal tissue, and the 
animal becomes convalescent, suffering only from the exhaus- 
tion which is proportioned to the severity of the attack, but 
from which recovery "is very rapid, under a liberal system 
of dietetics. From the date of the eruption to the time of 
convalescence, in the favourable form of the disease, an average 
period of ten days will be occupied ; and no medicine which 
has yet been tried possesses the power to shorten this period, 
or to arrest the course of the malady. Treatment, therefore, 
in this type of the disease should be tentative, rather than 
actively corrective. The duty of the veterinary surgeon is to 
