Part 88

Causes. It occurs especially in the hot midsummer season in cattle kept in filthy stables, where the feet and pasterns are kept filthy and the air charged with irritant ammoniacal fumes. A streptococcus is usually met with and may be found in pure cultures in resulting abscesses.

Symptoms. The attack is sudden, the skin around the pastern becoming red, warm, swollen and tender, with the formation of vesicles, isolated or confluent, which rupture and discharge a serous exudate that dries up into crusts and scabs. Lameness is a marked symptom and in bad cases the swelling and pain are such that the foot may be habitually raised from the ground and rested only on the toe. The swollen skin is thrown into folds which rub on each other, and breaks open into cracks from which exudes a serous fluid that macerates and irritates the skin, the heel pad and the interdigital space, so as to determine interdigital foot rot. This may lead to inflammation inside the hoof with shedding of the horny mass, or it may subside into a chronic form with an abundant squamous product.

Treatment should be mainly prophylactic in the direction of cleanliness and abundant litter in the stables, and the avoidance of pools of liquid manure and of septic mud puddles in the yards and roads.

In the early stages of the affection the pasterns and interdigital spaces should be thoroughly cleansed and covered with a bandage with a weak solution of acetate of lead, or of sulphate of zinc, or carbolic acid, or sulphate of iron or copper. In the more advanced stages tar water or crude tar will serve a good purpose, or watery or alcoholic solutions of creolin, creosote, oil of tar, carbolic acid or iodol. When the horn has been separated from the quick, it is usually best to pare away all such, to bevel the edges so as to make them less rigid and more pliant and to dress with tar water and later to cover with undiluted tar and bandage.

MOIST ECZEMA OF THE TAIL, NECK, CHINE AND DEWLAP OF CATTLE.

Definition. Causes: in work oxen, winter, foul stables; dairy cows on spoiled fodder or maize, wheat, buckwheat, cotton seed, etc. Contagion. Symptoms: skin hot, thick, tender, exuding, matted hair, vesicles, itching, excoriation, ulceration, bleeding, sloughing. Treatment: Soothing. Cleanliness. Pure air. Tepid sponging. Dusting powder. Clip or shave. Calomel with care. Phenol. Creolin. Silver or copper salts. Tannic or boric acid.

This is an acute eczematous eruption of cattle beginning as a congestion and swelling of the skin and advancing to an exudation or secretion which bedews the surface with a sticky discharge, and concretes into scabs and crusts.

Causes. The disease has been mainly seen in work oxen during winter, when kept in close, foul stables and not properly groomed. It is also seen in dairy cows and may be attributed to the indigestion and gastric disorders which come from the ingestion of spoiled fodders, or from a too stimulating diet, such as Indian corn, wheat, buckwheat, barley, cotton seed, and the seeds of the leguminosæ. Lafosse looked upon it as contagious, but Cadeac denies both this and its alimentary origin.

Symptoms. The attack is severe, the skin becoming swollen, hot and tender, especially at the base of the tail, on the neck, chine and forehead. Soon the turgid, congested skin exudes a somewhat glutinous serous product, which mats the hairs into tufts and exposes the intervening red, excoriated skin, with here and there vesicles singly or in groups. Itching is usually intense and the animal licks, rubs and scratches the affected surface unmercifully. The resulting excoriations and sores add greatly to the severity of the troubles, including ulceration, bleeding and even sloughing.

Treatment. Prophylaxis should be the first consideration, and in the acute stages of the disease, its arrest by soothing applications. Cleanliness, pure air, and tepid sponging, to be followed by a dusting powder of boric or salicylic acid, or a lotion of acetate of lead or sulphate of zinc may serve a good purpose. If the case proves obstinate, the hair may be clipped or shaved to allow of the more direct and thorough application of the dressings. Cadeac especially recommends an ointment of calomel (1 ∶ 10) but this must not be applied over an extended surface, nor must it be recklessly repeated owing to the dangerous susceptibility of the bovine race to mercurialism.

Lotions and ointments of carbolic acid are of great value in moderating the intense pruritus, and a combination of this with lead acetate will often prove quite effective. Lotions, liniments or ointments of tar, oil of cade, creosote, or creolin. When ulcers are present they may be treated by solutions of silver nitrate (2 ∶ 100) or cupric sulphate (2 ∶ 100) or powdered iodoform. When the exudate is excessive, astringent dusting powders often serve a good purpose; tannic acid and boric acid, with starch or lycopodion.

CHRONIC ECZEMA IN CATTLE.

Summer disease. Depilation. Scaly. Itchy at first. Lesions of bones, red zones representing successive attacks. Alterative tonics indicated.

Megnin records the case of an ox which on three successive springs had a miliary vesicular eruption on the loins and upper walls of the abdomen, which persisted until the advent of cold weather in the fall. The vesicles were followed by an exudate which concreted in solid crusts, enveloping the roots of the hairs which were lifted from the follicles and failed to be renewed, so that the animal entered on the winter with an appearance of alopecia. The denuded surface was red, shining and covered with a dense covering of lamelliform epidermic scales. In the early stage of the eruption there was moderate pruritus, but when the scaly stage was reached it was neither tender nor itchy to any marked degree. Tar ointments had no effect in stimulating the growth of the hair, and the skin remained bald until the next attack. The second and third years the eruption extended farther, invading not only the trunk, but the legs, and passing through the same successive stages.

The animal was butchered and the shafts of the bones were found to be abnormally red, and showed three concentric rings of deeper brown, manifestly representing the three acute attacks and resembling the concentric rings formed in growing bones when the young animals are fed on madder.

The manifest disorder of nutrition in this chronic skin disease, is an argument for the treatment by alterative tonics, such as arsenic, as well as for the employment of tonics and corroborants in general. In such cases the presumption is that local treatment would be useless or nearly so until the general disorder could be repaired.

ECZEMA IN SHEEP.

In anæmias squamous eruptions. In cold rainy weather moist eczema. Salving. Thin wooled. Congestion, swelling, papules, vesicles, scabs, depilation. Recovery with dry weather. Prevention: fold in rainy weather, covers. Pruriginous eczema. Fagopyrism.

The skin of the sheep is so densely covered by wool and so lubricated with its own secretion, that it is little liable to non-parasitic dermatitis, or such as exist are to a large extent overlooked. In internal parasitisms (distomatosis, strongyliasis, etc.), the wool becomes flattened (“clapped”) and the skin the seat of a dry (squamous) eczema with scaly accumulations around the roots of the wool.

MOIST ECZEMA, the “rain rot” of the Germans is seen in low conditioned sheep which have been left out in the heavy cold rains, and is attributed to the direct entrance of the rain by the dorsal shed of the wool. In salving sheep it is a great point with the shepherds to avoid opening the way for such entrance, by shedding only at a short distance on each side of the spine, and never directly in the center. Thin wooled sheep are also specially liable to the disease. When the rain enters so as to soak the skin and deeper layers of the wool, it softens and macerates the skin, introduces microbes and favors decomposition and in various ways incites to dermatitis. The skin becomes red and swollen with an eruption of papules and vesicles, and an exudation which concretes in scabs around the wool, which under the constant accretions from below lifts the wool from its follicles, leaving bare scurfy, or vesicular patches. This appears in different parts of the body beginning in the region of the vertebræ (back, loins, croup), and extending on the shoulders, neck, sides of the chest and abdomen. The disease is rarely inveterate and generally subsides spontaneously on the return of the dry weather. Still it may cause considerable loss of wool and hence it may be desirable to fold the flocks during cold rainy seasons, or, if they must be run at pasture, to cover the back of each with a piece of sacking.

OTHER CUTANEOUS ERUPTIONS IN SHEEP.

A dry and a moist eczema have been noticed in the sheep, (pruriginous eczema: impetiginous eczema) and a moist eczema of the pastern comparable to grease in the horse. Fagopyrism also occurs.

ECZEMA IN SWINE.

Secondary skin lesions, maculæ, vesicles, seborrhœa, crusts. Impetigo of young: cold weather: exposure: filth: spoiled or improper food. Symptoms: eyelids, etc., show itchy, red, swelling, pustules, scabs, erosions, may affect nose or mouth. Duration 20 days. Hot weather aggravates. Treatment: cleanse: soapy washes: emollient ointments, astringent lotions, saline laxative, diuretics.

Disease of the skin is by no means uncommon in swine, but it occurs mostly as a manifestation of an acute general malady. Thus in the different specific diseases, caused by microbes, maculæ in the form of blood extravasations, punctiform or in extended patches are constant phenomena. In some cases this is complicated by a vesicular eruption, or by a seborrhœa and by a dense accumulation of black crust on the surface.

=Impetigo of Pigs.= Benion and Cadeac describe this as a sporadic affection of young pigs especially, which has been attributed to cold stormy weather, lack of shelter, filthy pens, spoiled food and insufficient nourishment.

Symptoms. The skin of the eyelids and other parts of the body presents itchy, red, hot and swollen patches, which gradually pass into a pustular eruption. The pustules no larger than a millet seed, burst in forty-eight hours, and discharge a yellowish or purulent liquid which concretes around the eyelashes or bristles, and glue the eyelids together. The crusts may increase so as to cover the affected part of the skin by a dense scabby covering which is firmly adherent and when detached leaves a bleeding surface. It may extend to the different mucosæ of the eye, nose or mouth. The disease runs a course of twenty days or less being retarded by the extremes of temperature. During the heats of summer the attendant pruritus is very great and annoying. During convalescence the scabs and crusts gradually detach themselves and drop off leaving the healthy skin covered at first by a somewhat delicate epidermis.

Treatment is confined to cleanliness, soapy washes, emollient ointments and astringent lotions (lead acetate, sulphuric or hydrochloric acid) but no premature detachment of scabs is permissible. Saline laxatives and diuretics are often called for.