ACTINOMYCOSIS. 
175 
cattle are being wounded in this manner they continually feed 
and roam over the very objects that afford a resting place for 
the germ and occasionally one or more are inoculated and the 
fungus so introduced develops oftentimes into a tumor. This 
may not at first seem plausible, but when you stop to reflect 
and consider that this disease has increased in the subcutaneous 
forms with the increased use of barbed wire for fencing, and has 
not so increased where wire was not used, you will recall how 
often you have seen animals so injure themselves in the very 
places where these tumors most frequently exist, and how read¬ 
ily the fungus which must be present in large numbers on the 
forage plants might be brought in contact with the subcutaneous 
tissue. 
On tne western ranges where wire is less in use the forms 
seen are principally those affecting internal structures such as 
may be occasionally punctured by some sharp object, as a stone, 
that may be chewed by the animals, or that form which affects 
the bones themselves and has the opening for inoculation 
through the alveoli of a carious tooth. These cases however 
are quite rare. The lingual and pharyngeal type of the disease 
is most common where cattle are kept stabled and fed on 
sloppy and other food in which by chance there is more danger 
of sharp and pointed objects, being secreted and making open¬ 
ings through which the germs contained on the rough forage 
may enter. In the lungs the diseased growth is probably 
caused by particles of irritating material to which germs adhere, 
being inhaled and setting up centers of inflammation and suppur¬ 
ation, which affords the germs a suitable place for development. 
The germs having thus entered the openings accidentally made 
meet with some resistance to their development. The leuco¬ 
cytes attempt to destroy them and if they chance to be located 
in any muscle having a good blood supply and not too great a 
supply of conductive tissue where a lodgment may be effected 
until the growth is commenced, they are completely destroyed. 
( To be Cent limed.) 
