94 REPORT ON THE EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE. 
limbs and body, especially the points bearing the animal’s weight 
when lying down. At this stage of the disease it was often 
attended with so mucli fever and prostration of strength and con- 
stitutional debility, that the animal was incapable of rising or 
changing its position, which caused extensive ulcers, abscesses, 
and frequently death from irritation and exhaustion. 
A few cases of second attacks are reported to have occurred, 
and even third attacks are mentioned ; but these are exceptions. 
There are reports of some having been herded with infected 
animals and entirely escaping, and some that had gone through 
the disease, and, although re-exposed in diseased herds, had no 
rei^ewal. Jn one report vaccine inoculation from a child is said to 
have lessened the severity of the disease. Low condition is also 
said to have diminished its virulence. In the few that had second 
attacks the disease in some is stated to have been in a severer, 
and in others in its usual form*. 
The medical treatment has generally been of a purgative na- 
ture, sometimes too strong and probably injurious, frequently 
combined with diuretics and stimulants, &c. ; and astringents 
were used externally to the teats, feet, and mouths, and tar in 
some cases to the feet, and occasionally mild caustic applications. 
Bleeding has also been practised by some and disapproved of by- 
others. Setons, issues, and blisters have also been employed. 
Abortion has seldom occurred, nor has the produce of any 
stock been born diseased, although the mothers were labouring 
under it during parturition. 
Some newly-born animals became sickly in two or three days 
after birth, and died apparently from constitutional disturbance. 
Others, in which the usual symptoms became manifest, were cut 
off within a week. It is stated to have appeared in the feet of 
sucking pigs only. 
Upon the subsidence of the disease many cattle were attacked 
with cutaneous eruptions, which usually yielded to the remedies 
employed in ordinary cases of mange. 
In the few post-mortem examinations that were made, a dis- 
eased state of some, and in others of all the vital organs, appeared, 
and marked inflammatory action had been general throughout 
the system. 
The epidemic disappeared in some farms and dairies in about 
a month, and in others extended to six months. 
The cattle that have suffered from the disease in the country 
* Preventive treatment has been resorted to successfully, as reported in 
some cases, but failed in others, such as smearing the noses, feet, backs, 
loins, and horns at intervals with tar. Others have applied it about the pre- 
mises. 
