ACTINOMYKOSIS. 
523 
to the list of microphytes which prove to be veritable scourges to 
animals, and are productive of loss to the community. 
For the last two years, the pages of the Veterinary Journal 
have been more or less occupied with the descriptions and discus¬ 
sion of a disease chiefly affecting bovine animals, more particu¬ 
larly those of a juvenile age, and which has been by the majority 
of writers designated “ Tubercular Stomatitis,” evidently from the 
character of the lesions and its chiefly affecting the mouth; while 
by a few it lias received other designations, and its tubercular 
nature has been denied. 
The same malady has received some attention at other times 
among veterinary surgeons in this country, but nothing has been 
published as to its pathology.* 
Though it is probable that two or more diseases have been in¬ 
cluded in this discussion, yet with regard to that which received 
the before-mentioned designation, there were some veterinary 
surgeons—myself included—who, for several reasons, were in¬ 
clined to doubt its being allied to, or identical with, tuberculosis; 
and as the question was one of some importance, from a sanitary 
and pathological point of view, an attempt was made to decide it 
by appealing to those practitioners who had the opportunity, to 
forward specimens of the disease to the Brown Institution for ex¬ 
amination. 
Several members of the profession obligingly complied with 
the request; but the only specimen, which arrived in a satisfactory 
condition was the tongue of a steer forwarded in May last, by 
Mr. James, M.R.O.V.S., Thornbury, Gloucestershire. The animal 
from which the organ had been obtained was, as Mr. James sub¬ 
sequently informed me, one of five affected with this so called 
tubercular stomatitis, the others having been successfully sub- 
*There are a few notes on what may have been this malady, by Professor Axe, 
in the Vetermarian for 1877, pp. 605, 759, but they are merely quotations, and 
throw no light whatever on the disease. Up to the present time, the views en¬ 
tertained with regard to it are fairly represented in the opinion of the late Pro¬ 
fessor of Cattle Pathology at the Royal Veterinary College, who, in the course 
of some remarks on what would appear to have been a case of this affection, 
and which was designated “ Schirrus Tongue,” states that “the causes of schir- 
rus are obscure,’ but they are evidently of a constitutional nature , as the disease 
is generally insidious in its attack, gradual in its development, and fatal in its 
consequences.” 
