MALADIE DU COIT 
409 
it liangs too far out of the sheath, generally in the prepuce, but in 
extreme cases hangs entirely out of prepuce and sheath, full length 
and powerless, so that when the animal is trotted the penis is 
thrown from flank to flank by the swinging of the body. 
When the testes are affected they may be atrophied, and high 
up against the inguinal ring, or apparently enlarged and pendant, 
are usually soft to the touch, and indefinite in contour from adhe¬ 
sion of the coverings. 
The prognosis is always unfavorable, and there is no safe guide 
by which we can predict the final result. 
The mortality ranges usually between sixty and eighty per 
cent, of the affected animals. In the present outbreak, as shown 
by footings of the stallion list, almost seventy per cent, have died 
or been killed, at a nominal price, as practically worthless; and 
when we consider the imperfect recoveries in those remaining, the 
exceedingly protracted course of the disease, the expense of keeping 
while affected, and expense and trouble of treatment, the direct 
monetary loss to the owners has considerably exceeded the original 
value of the entire number of affected animals. 
Contagium is “ fixed,” that is, transmissible only by direct 
inoculation, and is thought by many authors to exist mainly or 
only in the secretions of the urethra in the horse, and the vagina 
and uterus in the mare. 
Autopsies in several stallions in the present outbreak revealed 
no ulcerations or disease of urethra, but there was every reason to 
believe that the seminal vesicles and the enlarged portion of the 
vas deferens were the real sources of principal supply of the in¬ 
fecting virus in the stallion. Experiments by European veterina¬ 
rians, as well as observations in the present outbreak, demonstrate 
fully that the disease is contagious, but it seems impossible to 
transmit the disease to others than solipeds (horse, ass and mule).* 
The vitality of the virus is unknown; in affected animals it 
certainly persists for several years. 
It is transmitted practically only by direct contact of a diseased 
with a healthy animal in the act of coition, although it is possible 
to transmit the disease by inoculation. 
Cohabitation without sexual intercourse will hot produce the 
disease. 
