Part 81

5th. If any stallion or mare is imported from a country in which dourine exists it should be accompanied by an official certificate showing that it has not in the past three years been exposed to the possibility of infection with dourine.

6th. In the absence of such certificate the imported animal (capable of breeding) should be kept in strict quarantine for the period of three years.

7th. A much more radical measure, which may be made to supersede all of the above, would be to castrate every soliped (stallion or mare) which has suffered from the disease in the past three years, and every such animal that has by coition been exposed during that length of time to even a remote opportunity for contagion. This would embrace all apparently sound mares that had been served by a stallion which had shown slight symptoms of the disease, or by a stallion which had not himself shown such symptoms, but which had served a mare that had shown such symptoms; or one that had served a mare that had not shown such symptoms, but that had been previously served by a stallion which had shown such symptoms, or that previously covered a mare that had shown such symptoms. In such cases the State might well afford to indemnify the owner for any reduction in value of the castrated stallion from that borne by the animal as a prospective breeder, the breeding for which indemnity is sought being understood to count only from a date of three years after the sanitary castration. A mare once attacked should be remorselessly castrated or killed. A perfect recovery in a horse can be better attested; that of a mare is always uncertain, and most secondary outbreaks after the apparent extinction of the poison have come from breeding mares that have apparently recovered, or that after exposure have shown no appreciable symptoms.

When a State is so lost to all sanitary considerations as to abandon an affection of this kind to take its course, the owners of stallions and mares cannot be too careful to avoid the exposure of their valuable breeders to the risk of infection. Each mare brought for service should be admitted only when accompanied by a certificate showing all previous services in the last three years, with the identification of the stallion, and this irrespective of whether the service has been fruitful or not. In such certificate the owner of the mare should bind himself to make good all damage or loss that may accrue from his failure to set forth in the certificate every such service and every symptom of illness affecting the generative organs from which the mare has suffered in the three years antecedent.

The owner of the stallion should give a similar guarantee that the horse has in the past three years served no mare that was in any way open to suspicion, and that the animal has not suffered from any affection of the generative organs which had any of the characteristics of dourine.

No mare should be served which shows swelling, nodules, distortion, or gaping vulva, a muco-purulent discharge, or too frequent or too prolonged heats.

No stallion in such locality should be allowed to serve which shows pasty swelling of the sheath, swelling, shrinking or distortion of the penis, red, angry, tender meatus urinarius, or a muco-purulent discharge.

Unless in case of Arabian horses the appearance of white spots on the dark ground of the sheath, penis, vulva, or perineum, should be ground for debarring from service until an absolutely stainless record covering a number of years has been shown.

MAL DE CADERAS.

This is a disease caused by Trypanosoma Equinum described by Voges who studied the affection in the Argentine Republic as it exists in a region extending from Santa Fe, and Corrientes on the south to Bolivia on the north. It resembles surra in prevailing in tropical heat, during wet weather, in its intermittent character, in the presence of the mature trypanosomata in the blood at the beginning of a paroxysm and their disappearance toward the end of it, in the supervention of rapid and extreme emaciation, debility and anæmia, in the destruction of red blood globules and the passage of the coloring matter by the kidneys, in the presence of paresis and œdemas, in its expending its energy mainly on the soliped and in the constancy of the mortality. Death occurs in two to five months in horses, and six to twelve months in asses and mules. Swine and water hogs contract the disease casually and it is inoculable on white and gray rats, mice, rabbits, dogs, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, ducks and monkeys, (Nyctipithecus felinus), and exceptionally on Guinea pigs. The same measures of prevention would be indicated as in cases of surra and dourine.

INFECTIOUS PARAPLEGIA OF SOLIPEDS IN MARAJA.

Synonym. Definition: Infectious, anæmic, dropsical paraplegia. Origin: Decomposition of myriads of horse carcasses in torrid heat; rodents; swine; horses. Causes: Microbe uncertain; infection in corral and vicinity; manure; rubbish; flies; hot dry weather. Symptoms: Decreasing severity; preliminary weakness, dulness, emaciation, dyspnœa. Paresis: Fifty per cent. paraplegic; marasmus; difficult defecation or urination; paretic penis; anorexia; ardent thirst with diuresis; rumbling of bowels. Œdema, epigastrium, abdomen, sheath, mammæ, head. Cutaneous sloughing, stupor, asthenia, rapid emaciation, hemiplegia, impaired peristalsis. Blood dark, viscid. Lesions: Intestinal congestion; petechiæ of serosæ; icterus; enlarged, soft, congested liver; spleen engorged, softened; kidneys swollen, congested; petechiæ on bladder; congested lungs, thoracic serosæ, cerebral meninges. Relation to surra. Mortality excessive or constant. Treatment hopeless. Prevention: Keep sound from sick and from infected places and things; kill and bury sick; disinfect harness, trappings, wagons, utensils, buildings, manure and rubbish heaps; destroy flies and mosquitoes, vermin (rodents), etc.

Synonym. Quebra Bunda: Broken Buttock.

Definition. An acute infectious disease of horses characterized by a condition of fever, with rapid loss of condition, resulting in rapid and extreme emaciation, local dropsies, cutaneous eruptions and ulcers, a rapidly advancing anæmia and debility, with lessening control of the hind quarters and death in almost all instances.

History of the Disease. Luis Calendrini da Silva Pacheco says the malady was unknown on the island until 1830, when, on account of the great excess of wild horses and their devouring the pastures needed for the more valuable cattle, great numbers were killed and their hides marketed. This continued for over a year without any attempt to dispose of the carcasses. These accordingly lay in heaps in a damp climate, under the equatorial sun, in a condition of putrefaction, exhaling the most offensive odors. Stimulated by frequent complaints, the government ordered that the carcasses should be burned to ashes, but no success was accomplished, in one case 800 bodies having been merely roasted a little on the surface. The district around Chaves contained the greatest number of horses, there the greatest number were killed, and there the disease broke out. A number, variously estimated at from 25,000 to 60,000 were driven into the little bay of Juncal and killed by burning the grass, which, however, did not at all consume the bodies. The disease attacked first the capivaras (rodents) in the district of Chaves, killing off the whole race; then the wild and domestic swine suffered, and finally it ravaged the equine race, and though confined to Chaves for two years it was extended through sales of horses and raged with such fury that in five years not a horse was left alive in the island, except a small remnant of a few hundreds in Chaves, where the infection started.

Causes. The microbian cause of the disease has not been definitely ascertained, so it is idle to speculate whether we have to deal with a saprophyte which has taken on deadly pathogenic properties, or whether the infection was carried to the island by winged insects or birds attracted by the decaying carcasses.

Certain conditions may be named as accessory or favoring causes. The wild horse often escapes so long as he is on the pasture, but when lassoed, taken to the corral and broken, he will die in four to six days. This suggests that the infection is laid up and preserved in the corrals or stables, the mangers or racks, or possibly in the water supplies. The contact with even the reins (harness) of other horses is alleged to be a prominent cause of infection. Another significant point is that around every hacienda, within a radius of a mile, there are numbers of carcasses, so that there is every opportunity for the infection of the wild and susceptible horses caught and brought in. Near the buildings, too, are accumulations of horse and cattle manure and rubbish heaps of all kinds, the breeding places of the flies, which are probably important factors in conveying the infection. Again, the attacks are more numerous and severe and death earlier in the hot, dry summer weather, while there is a pause and a lesser intensity in the cool or rainy season. All domestic animals, save when kept up for breaking or work, live in the open field day and night and subsist on the green food (capine, gramineæ), and are thereby exposed to all climatic changes.

Symptoms. At the first appearance of the disease (1830) it proved fatal in a few hours, but after a year’s prevalence, when the more susceptible animals had been killed off, the progress of the malady became slower, death being deferred to the 8th or 15th day, so that the symptoms could be more definitely followed. From 7 to 14 days before the more obvious symptoms, there were lifelessness, tardy movement, hurried breathing, debility, weakness and emaciation without work or other obvious cause. Exercise caused difficult breathing, dilated nostrils and great agitation of the flanks.

One of the most constant symptoms was the loss of power of the hind limbs which would sway and stagger, the femurs turning inward, as if dislocated, and on uneven ground the animal could not walk without falling. When down, he could not rise without assistance. In the earlier experience of the malady (1835) only 8 to 16 per cent. failed to show these paraplegic symptoms, whereas in recent years 50 per cent. or more escape them. In these cases the emaciation goes on alone, gradually encreasing until the patient appears like a living skeleton. Some retain an appearance of liveliness, yet all stand on three limbs, and change from one hind limb to the other every six or eight seconds.

The retraction of the abdomen is a marked feature, yet expulsive contraction is defective, the patient fails to put himself in the position for urination or defecation, and there is more or less detention of urine or fæces, the latter being dry, moulded, covered with mucus and of a reddish yellow color. After a time the urine escapes in fine jets, so small that in the absence of stretching to urinate, or raising of the tail, they are easily overlooked. The urine may be normally clear, or dark colored. The penis hangs out of the sheath several inches farther than in health.

Appetite is sometimes impaired, or completely lost, but usually the patient eats and drinks to the last, but without proper digestion or assimilation. It does not check the advance of marasmus. Thirst often becomes excessive and in such cases, there is diuresis together with frequent and excessive rumbling of the bowels. The loins are very sensitive to pinching.

About sixty to seventy per cent. in different outbreaks show œdema, in the epigastric region it may be six inches in diameter, or it may extend from the sternum back so as to include the abdomen, sheath, or mammæ, and perineum, and even the hind limbs. Considerable serous oozing takes place from this for four or five days after which it dries up.

In about seven to fourteen per cent. the head became œdematous and swollen, with an abundant fœtid purulent discharge from the nose and eyes, and extensive ulceration of the pituita and conjunctiva. Such cases became completely blind prior to death. In other cases extensive ulceration of the skin set in with the formation of most repulsive sores.

The nervous symptoms assumed various forms; in some there was stupor with head resting on the ground; in others extreme debility and paraplegia with phenomenally rapid emaciation; in a few hemiplegia, or even delirium was shown; in all there was a marked paresis of the digestive organs and especially impairment of peristalsis. The blood assumed a dark gluey aspect.

The most constant symptoms appear to be dyspnœa under exercise, paresis of the hind limbs and intestines, genital atony, a wonderfully rapid and extreme emaciation, œdema, and a tendency to impaired nutrition or ulcerous degenerations of the pituita, conjunctiva or skin.

Lesions. Congestion or inflammation of the intestines was usually noted, with petechiæ on the peritoneum, especially the omentum, and on other serosæ. The serosæ, mucosæ and other normally white tissues were of a yellowish color, more or less deep. The liver was enlarged, much softened, gorged with black blood, and sometimes of a greenish color. The spleen was more or less black, and friable sometimes coming to pieces in handling. The kidneys were always enlarged and gorged with black blood. The bladder was usually distended and showed petechiæ on its mucosa. The lungs and bronchia bore evidences of congestion, and the pericardium had become dull, rough and lusterless. The horses that had rested their heads on the ground showed meningeal congestion.

Sr. Calendrini claims to have had recoveries in some cases, followed by relapses, and states that a second relapse is usually fatal. Many features of the disease reminds one of surra—for example its relation to hot weather, its relation to buildings and enclosures with their accumulations of decomposing organic matter and swarms of flies, the decomposition of the blood, anæmia, icterus of the white tissues, petechiæ, extreme weakness, muscular atrophy, and marasmus. Calendrini’s cures followed by relapses suggest the further coincidence of intermissions. If now the trypanosoma were discovered in the blood it might be recognized as at least a near ally of surra.

Mortality. Prognosis. The disease is nearly always fatal. At the time of its first appearance (1830) Calendrini had 5,000 horses, and in 1835 he mounted his last horse a half-tamed animal lassoed on the Campo. One Haziendiero invested $25,000 in horses and in 30 days he had lost $18,000 worth. Others with 35,000 head lost the whole.