REPORTS OF CASES. 
539 
REPORTS OF CASES, 
AN EPIZOOTIC APHTHOUS FEVER. 
By Dr. P. Paquin, Columbia, Mo. 
There has existed in the State of Missouri (and I am told 
in Iowa and Illinois to some extent) a fever which has at¬ 
tacked during the same period so many cattle very widely 
scattered, that I am at a loss to account for the active cause. 
No less than three thousand two hundred and sixty-six cases 
have been reported to this office, and I have seen besides up¬ 
wards of two hundred and ten cases in a couple of counties. 
Dr. C. B. Michener, of New York, saw a few cases with me 
near Columbia and elsewhere in Missouri. 
The malady is, in its course, history and lesions, new to 
me. It seems to have sprung up all at once in several coun¬ 
ties of our State, seven of them having reported within two 
or three days a large number of outbreaks among their herds. 
There was no regular course of progress in any locality. 
In some herds only one or two heads suffered, whilst in others 
the vast majority and sometimes all became ill. In some 
townships it stopped at one farm, and in others it visited a 
great many. 
The death rate in adults was not over one-half of one per 
cent., and these deaths were due to complications or starva¬ 
tion. In suckling calves the disease was not so prevalent even 
in the affected herds, but among them actually diseased, the 
death rate was in average twenty per cent, in those too 
young to be specially fed. A great deal of damage was 
caused, however, by the rapid loss of flesh and milk due to 
inability to eat and ruminate. In a very few days fat cattle 
fell in flesh to the amount of six to ten dollars. 
There was some resemblance in the duration and general 
lesions with the European foot and mouth disease, but the 
peculiar, specific and characteristic blebs of the latter were 
not present. The nature and limitation of the blisters and 
ulcers differed, and again inoculation practiced repeatedly 
