1 Jur, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 83 
POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION. 
The carcass was well nourished and fairly fat. The muscular tissue of the 
fore and hind quarters was anemic. The appearances of the internal organs 
were as follows :— 
Heart—The outer muscular tissue had its smaller vessels and capillaries 
dilated. 
Lungs—Congested. 
Liver—Very much enlarged and friable, and of a dark-yellow ochre colour. 
Gall-Bladder—W alls fully distended ; several small petechiz on mucous 
membrane. 
Bile—Enormous quantity, very thick, granular, and almost black. 
Spleen—Greatly enlarged, almost three times normal size; substance 
tarry and in consistence like black currant jam. 
Urine—The bladder was very much dilated, and contents resembled very 
dark port wine; in fact, it was almost black. 
Stomach—The food in the stomach was impacted, especially in the third 
and fourth stomachs. 
Intestines—Vhe feces in the rectum were very hard. 
Tusercurar Lestons—The only visible lesions of this disease were: Several 
tubercles (each about the size of a walnut) in the substance and on the dorsal 
surface of the right lung; and a mass of tubercular nodules on the inner lining 
of the right ribs. The other organs and lymphatic glands throughout the 
body were apparently free from the disease. 
A most conspicuous feature about the tubercular lesions was the colour, 
which, instead of being almost white and free from blood, was of a very dark-red 
in consequence of the intensely congested state of the bloodvessels. ~ This pro- 
nounced state of congestion is invariably present in all new growths found in 
the thoracic and abdominal cavities of an animal dead of acute tick fever; this 
is brought about by the extremely fine calibre of the capillaries, which is onl 
sufficiently large to allow a normal red blood corpusele to squeeze through, but 
during acute fever the bloodcells, containing one or more of the pyrosomum 
micro-parasites, cannot be forced by the blood pressure through the vessels, 
which gradually become congested, resulting in what appears to be a mass of 
emboli plugging the capillaries. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
The above facts apparently throw much light on the vexed question, “ Is 
inoculation responsible (where ticks are present) for the introduction of tick — 
fever amongst uninoculated susceptible cattle?’’ Theoretically, and-in my 
opinion, the answer should be in the affirmative, for the simple reason that the 
nature and symptoms of the disease produced naturally and carried on through 
successive generations by the ticks are precisely the same in every detail as the 
fever produced and carried on continuously by means of subcutaneous or 
intravenous inoculation of recovered or virulent blood. 
No one will dispute the fact that the disease in its severest form was spread 
from the Gulf country in £895-6 right across to Townsville, and from thence to 
the Lower Burdekin, naturally by ticks, as the system of preventive inoculation 
for tick fever was at that time practically unknown. Moreover, it was observed 
that in some cases the disease appeared soon after the arrival of the tick; while 
in others, although a mild and unnoticeable form of the fever may have existed, 
no deaths or severe attacks of the disease were perceivable until the ticks had 
become established in the district for over 12 months, and in exceptional cases for 
nearly 2 years. ‘This can only be explained in what I believe to be an alternation 
of generations of the micro-parasite, which, alone and in a certain form only, is 
capable of causing acute fever by the rapid multiplication of its species in this 
stage, and a correspondingly speedy invasion and destruction of the red blood 
corpuscles. 
