THE RECENT CATTLE DISEASE IN KANSAS, 
291 
with heat, doughy swelling, and extreme tenderness of the affected 
extremities. The heat is soon reduced below the natural standard, 
or followed by absolute coldness, sensibility is lost, the part takes 
on a deep brownish-red or black appearance, dries or withers up into 
a hard horny-like mass, and is slowly separated from the living 
parts. Sometimes the death of the tissue and subsequent slough¬ 
ing is limited to circumscribed spots or patches above the hoof, 
but more commonly it involves at once the whole substance of the 
member (skin, sinews, and bones) up to the top of the hoof, to a 
given height on the pastern, or to some point on the shank bone. 
The limit of the dead part may be easily recognized by the abrupt 
edge of the cold, hard, dried-up and insensible skin as contrasted 
with the hot, puffy, swollen tissues above. This limit is soon 
further marked by a breach of continuity or crack between the 
living and dead, forming a ring completely encircling the limb 
and extending in succession through the skin, sinews, and bone. 
All below this line is dark-brown or purplish-black, hard, dry, horny, 
insensible to wounds, and will not bleed when incised. Above 
this line are the healthy pink granulations, separating the dead 
from the living and building up a covering over the stump. The 
process of separation is rapid in the case of the soft tissues (skins, 
tendons, nerves, vessels), but may require months for its comple¬ 
tion through the center of the shank-bone, and as the animal is 
thrown into a state of great vital prostration and emaciation, to 
say nothing of poisoning from the absorption of septic products, 
it is soon reduced to a very miserable condition. This fact has 
given rise to many ignorant and unfounded charges of starvation 
of the animals in the recent outbreak. When the gangrene ex¬ 
tends up to the level of a joint (upper or lower pastern or fetlock), 
the separation through the comparatively soft ligaments of the 
joints is speedily effected, and the constitution suffers much less 
than when the separation has to be effected through the middle 
of the shank-bone. 
In favorable cases, after the removal of the dead mass, the 
stump heals over by the gradual contraction of the skin over its 
end and the formation of a firm cicatrix, and the animal makes 
a shift to live, and even at times to fatten. 
