CHAPTER IV.. Warts in Oxen.

WARTS IN OXEN.

Warts are cutaneous tumours, real papillomata, which most commonly attack young animals such as heifers. As a rule they are pedunculated, smooth, wrinkled or deeply cracked on the surface, but in some cases they are sessile.

=Causation.= The cause is difficult to ascertain. It has been referred to the growth of bacteria (Bacterium porri) in the superficial layers of the skin. It is at least certain that warts can be transmitted by inoculation or through the medium of cutaneous injuries.

=Symptoms.= On their first appearance warts consist in hypertrophy of the cutaneous papillæ, which become covered with layers of actively growing epidermis and end by projecting above the general surface. The lesions may remain isolated, or they may become confluent or unite at their base. This form is fairly common, the warts attaining the size of a man’s fist or more.

The disease attacks the most tender portions of the skin, such as that covering the udder, internal surface of the thighs, lower abdominal wall, region of the elbow, posterior surface of the ears, etc. In rarer cases warts may be seen on the limbs.

When they extend over a considerable surface they become infected, suppurate and give rise to various complications, the most serious being pyæmia. The patients lose condition and value.

=Diagnosis.= The diagnosis is easy. It has been proved that warts are contagious, not only as between animal and animal, but as between animal and man.

=Prognosis.= Warts are not dangerous to life, but they diminish the value of the animals, particularly that of milch cows when the teats are affected.

=Treatment.= Leaving out of account internal medication with calcined magnesia, many medicines that are still recommended are of comparatively little value.

Peuch and Cruzel recommend friction with oil of cade. Repeated cauterisation with nitric acid is declared to give good results by destroying the new tissue.

These modes of treatment, however, are impracticable in dealing with large multiple lesions, nor does the elastic ligature give much better results.

Total removal with the scissors or bistoury, or simply tearing out by hand, is preferable to any other course. Troublesome bleeding may follow, but is rarely of great importance. It usually stops in a few minutes, even where small arteries of the size of several millimètres in diameter have been divided. As a measure of precaution, however, the little wounds may be touched with the red-hot blade of the thermo-cautery.

The écraseur is rarely required. The smaller warts are generally sessile, and can be removed with a bistoury or a sharp curette. The removal of those about the udder requires considerable precaution to avoid injuring the teats.

All the growths are usually removed at one operation; Moussu has thus taken away 30 lbs. weight without the slightest ill effect. After the wounds have been washed with an antiseptic, the raw surfaces are powdered with a mixture of equal parts of boric acid, tannin, and calcined alum; cicatrisation occurs in a few days.

URTICARIA IN THE PIG.

This disease usually attacks pigs during the spring or summer, producing characteristic cutaneous lesions, which, however, are of a benign character. It seems to arise from some form of alimentary intoxication.

=Symptoms.= At first the dominant symptoms point to disturbance of digestion. The appetite is lost, and the bowels may be confined or there may be diarrhœa. This is sometimes accompanied by vomiting, and by fever.

The symptoms may develop fully in from six to twelve hours; sometimes the skin is covered with slightly prominent reddish patches, varying in size from ⅓ of an inch to 1¼ inches in diameter.

The patches may also become confluent and form large, irregular red or violet flattened swellings, sensitive to the touch and spread over the upper and lateral portions of the body. Only in exceptional cases is there any oozing of blood.

In favourable cases recovery takes place in forty-eight hours, and even in grave cases in from five to six days.

=Diagnosis.= It is sometimes very difficult to distinguish this condition from swine erysipelas, particularly in the first few cases, although the congested or hæmorrhagic patches occupy different positions.

=The prognosis= is usually favourable.

=Treatment.= The disease being unquestionably of digestive origin, the animals should be kept without food and receive repeated doses of mild purgatives according to their age and condition, sulphate of soda, 4 to 12 drachms, or calomel, 1½ to ·8 grains. Recovery is rapid.

SCLERODERMA.

This term is applied to a disease characterised by thickening and hardening of the skin. Up to now it has been described only in the pig, and principally in male animals or old animals of either sex.

=The symptoms= are difficult to detect, and in many cases are only discovered after slaughter. Without any change in external appearance, the skin becomes thick, hard and sclerosed over limited or extensive areas, and is thus transformed into hard, rigid, inextensible and inelastic plates, sometimes as much as 1 to 2 inches in thickness. The change usually commences about the dorsal region, and extends irregularly towards the chest and sometimes towards the limbs.

The patient thus becomes imprisoned in a kind of cuirass, which interferes with its movements and causes unaccountable stiffness. Palpation of the skin gives the impression of a piece of wood, for it is hard and resistant over the affected regions, whilst over the belly, inner surface of the thighs, and region of the elbow, it retains its usual pliability.

The patient exhibits no other symptoms, the principal functions of the body appearing to be properly performed. There is no fever, but in time the animals lose condition and waste away.

=Causation.= This disease is also well known in man, but no general agreement exists regarding its nature. Some refer it to disturbance of the thyroideal function, though scleroderma is quite different to myxœdema. Others attribute it to changes in the cutaneous blood-vessels, others, again, to peripheral neuritis accompanied by atrophic disturbance. Nothing, however, is proved.

The apparent =lesions= are limited to hypertrophic sclerosis of the dermis, with progressive atrophy of the layers of subcutaneous adipose tissue.

=The diagnosis= is comparatively easy.

=The prognosis= is grave, because it is never known how rapidly the disease may develop.

No method of treatment being known, the animals should at once be slaughtered.