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along with high fever, and remains fast and more enfeebled 
until a few hours before death, when the temperature suddenly 
descends to below normal or to normal; body becomes cold; 
pulse almost imperceptible; breathing infrequent; animal in com¬ 
plete comatose state, usually with head thrown against right 
side, death coming on from eighth to tenth day, sometimes 
sooner. In milch cows the milk rapidly diminishes during the 
first stages. In many cases of apparent recovery the animal has 
been noted to suffer a relapse and die, probably due to the com¬ 
plication of either Texas fever or the surra parasite. While 
nearly all the Orient is immune to the former, it is the suppo¬ 
sition that the attack of rinderpest has lowered the vitality and 
just at the subsiding of the latter. Texas fever is thus given in¬ 
gress owing to the natural acquired resistance becoming lowered, 
and the same, in a measure, is true of surra. 
Diagnosis. —This should not be so difficult, as one nearly al¬ 
ways finds more than one sick animal, and possibly one that has 
just died, affording post-mortem advantages; but in the absence 
of this the elevation of temperature, tearing, the peculiar fetid 
diarrhoea, with offensive breath, drooping ears and the endemic 
nature of the disease; having had previous outbreaks, recent im¬ 
portation of animals from such places, mucus and blood in dis¬ 
charges and contagious nature. 
Differential Diagnosis. —This is not always easy where other 
diseases of similar symptoms are known to exist, but, bearing 
the above cardinal points, no errors need be made. 
1. Malignant Catarrhal Fever. —This disease is only slightly 
infectious, slower course and the lesions are confined to the re¬ 
spiratory organs and passages, with severe ocular disturbance; 
this latter symptom would be an excellent guide, taken with the 
history. 
2. Gastro-intestinal Catarrh. —Cases are often met with 
which resemble rinderpest symptomatically, but the discharge 
from the eyes is more viscid than the latter and the absence of 
the peculiar fetid odor of the faeces, which is always present in 
rinderpest. 
