166 ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

to allow the escape of the pus at the sole, and when the shoe was removed the wound showed exuberant granulations projecting to the size of a pigeon's egg. The foot was enveloped in a large poultice, and the following day the animal was cast and operated upon as follows: The external quarter, which was separated in its posterior two-thirds, was removed, as was also the detached part of the sole. The coronary cushion was seen to be separated from the sensitive laminre by a piece of dead tissue, and elevated by the suppuration. A large part of the surface of the lateral cartilage was laid bare, and towards its centre there was an apple-green slough in part detached. This was excised, and the surface was scraped with a drawing knife. After a scrupulous cleansing of the wound and of the entire foot, a slightly compres­sive dressing with a solution of corrosive sublimate (I in 1000) was applied to the wound. Throughout the day the dressing was saturated several times with the same lotion. On the following day the lameness had greatly diminished, and the same treatment was maintained. On the 20th the improvement continued; a little pus showed itself at the heel, at the top of the dressing. The latter was removed, showing a healthy aspect of the wound, but towards its centre there was a small separating slough of cartilage. The dressing was reapplied, and the treatment with sublimate lotion was continued. The dressing was again changed on the 25th, the slough of cartilage being now distinctly isolated from the surrounding tissues. The dressing was reapplied, and the same treatment maintained until the 30th, when the dressing was removed and the slough easily detached. Subsequently the wound was irrigated thrice daily with sublimate lotion, and dusted with camphorated charcoal. On the 12th November an abscess of the size of a pea was opened at the coronary cushion, but this healed rapidly under injections of sublimate lotion thrice daily, and on the 20th November the horse left the hospital completely cured.

CASE II.-A heavy horse, aged 12 years, was brought to the college clinique on the 29th October last. The off fore foot showed above the coronary cushion, at the level of the external quarter, a large open fistula discharging sanious pus, and the region was greatly engorged. The shoe was immediately removed, revealing in the region of the heel a suppurating corn, with separ­ation of the over-lying sole and the corresponding region of the wall. The foot was placed in a linseed-meal poultice, and on the following day the animal was cast and the separated parts of the sole and wall were removed. A portion of the sensitive laminre was necrotic, and under it there could be felt a mobile sequestrum of the basilar process of the size of the end of the finger. This was exposed, and it was then seen to be in the way of separation. It was therefore detached, and all the suspected layers of cartilage were removed with the drawing knife, the irregular surface of the basilar process beinti similarly treated, so as to leave only the recognisably healthy tissues. As in the previous case, the wound and the whole foot were thoroughly cleansed, and thereafter a sublimate dressing was applied, and moistened several times daily with sublimate lotion. The dressing was changed on the 3rd December, and finally removed on the 6th, after which the wound was washed twice daily with sublimate lotion, and dusted with equal parts of calcined alum and charcoal. The horse left the hospital on the 13th December with the wound completely cicatrised.

NATURAL TRANSMISSION OF SWINE-FEVER (PNEUMO-ENTERITIS) TO THE SHEEP}

PROFESSOR GALTIER of the Lyons Veterinary College, who early in the present year investigated an outbreak of disease among sheep in the

1 Journal de lIIed. Vet. et de Zootechnie.

ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

district of the Basses Alpes, believes that the affection In question was pneumo-enteritis naturally transmitted from the pig. Two veterinary surgeons towards the end of December last had observed the disease, and had addressed each a report to the authorities of the district. The local veterinary inspector declared that the cause and the nature of the disease were unknown to him, while the chief inspector of the Sanitary Service of the department diagnosed the affection to be rinderpest. The symptoms and lesions described in their reports were briefly as follows: loss of appetite, congestion of the conjunctiva, drowsiness, very pronounced tympanites, constipation, sometimes but rarely diarrhc:ea, [::eces covered with streaks of blood, perforation of the flank, some­times intersecting the entire thickness of the abdominal wall, and even the viscera, rapid decomposition after death, lesions of entero-peritonitis, con­gestion, inflammation, and ulcerations or erosions of the mucous membrane of the small intestine, congestion of the mucous membrane of the stomach, congestion of the peritoneum, which was sometimes in part covered with a greyish or yellowish slightly consistent exudate, purulent foci sometimes in the peri - visceral tissue, infiltration of the subcutaneous tissue, congestion and c:edema of the lung, congestion and enlarge­ment of the lymphatic glands. The disease prevailed on six farms, and on inquiry Professor Galtier ascertained that one of the farmers, named Gay, had bought on the 20th October thirty-seven rams, ten of which he parted wi¢. to a neighbour in exchange for others. On the 5th November Gay bought from a travelling dealer two young pigs, and introduced them into a pig-stye in the corner of the enclosure in which the sheep were placed. These two pigs were recognised to be ailing three days after their arrival, the symptoms being sore throat, great difficulty of swallowing, loss of appetite, fetid diarrhc:ea, frequent cough, breathlessness, and prostration. The two animals also showed red spots on the body and on the ears, they lay persistently, and when placed on their feet they could with difficulty stand. After a period of nine days, during which they had become greatly emaciated, they began to take milk, and they slowly recovered. The same attendant fed the pigs and the sheep, and when the pig-stye was cleansed the litter and dung was spread in the enclosure in which the sheep were. The disease was observed in the sheep on the 24th December, but the ten animals disposed of to a neighbour before the introduction of the pigs remained healthy. On the 24th December a sheep was found dead with a perforation in the flank, from which a loop of bowel protruded, and on the same day the flank of another sheep was observed to be perforated, this animal dying on the following day.

Three more animals died on the 25th December, all exhibiting the perfora­tion of the flank, and three again with the same lesion on the following day. All of these animals had had a cough and a nasal discharge, and all had been tympanitic. Another sheep died on the 27th, and on the 28th nine of the survivors were observed to be ill, and with two or three exceptions all of these had the flank perforated. Three of those nine animals died between the 1st and the 12th January, and on the latter date when Professor Galtier visited the farm for the first time the remaining six were still ill, but in way of recovery. In five of them he found the flank lesion, and in one of them the wound had healed, while in the other four it was cicatrising. Of the sheep that had not up to the date of Professor Galtier's visit been recognised ailing he found that at least the half had been actually affected, as evidenced by cough and loss of condition despite good feeding.

In another commune the disease broke out on five farms. In the first of these two young pigs had been purchased at a fair in November and placed along with the sheep. Two or three days after their arrival the pigs were attacked with an illness apparently identical with that described in the preceding case, and on the 17th December the disease broke out among the

168 ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

sheep. In a flock of twenty-five sixteen died with symptoms and lesions similar to those seen on the first-mentioned farm.

In the second farm the circumstances were almost identical, and here eight out of twenty sheep died.

In the third farm two newly-purchased pigs fell ill two days after they were brought home, and while one recovered, the other died, and was buried not far from the farm. The sheep on this farm did not contract the disease, but they were enclosed at a distance of 200 metres from the pigs, and had no communication either direct or indirect with the diseased pigs.

The history of the outbreak on the fourth farm showed that while twelve out of twenty-two sheep had died, no newly-purchased pigs had been introduced, but the sheep had been pastured where the pig that died on the preceding adjoining farm had been buried without any precautions.

On the fifth farm in this commune the disease among the sheep appeared to have been contracted indirectly through water or pasture infected by other diseased floCks, or by the transport of dung from farms where pigs were attacked.

Professor Galtier found the following lesions on a sheep killed for the purpose of post-mortem examination: The lung showed lobular pneumonia disseminated throughout the whole organ. The bronchial lymphatic glands were enlarged, pale, softened, and almost diffluent towards the centre. At some places the peritoneum was abnormally thick, dull in lustre'vand of a yellowish-grey tint. The omentum showed also some yellowish or brownish spots. In the peri-pancreatic tissue there was found some fibrinous yellow material, and similar material was present in the peri-renal tissue. In the liver there were some points of superficial sclerosis, and a fetid abscess of the volume of a large nut. Scrapings from the lungs, bronchial glands, peritoneum, mesenteric glands, etc., showed numerous bacteria. The peculiar and almost constant perforation of the flank was attributed by Professor Galtier to injury inflicted by the animals themselves with their horns while suffering from abdominal pain and tympanites. The bacteria visible in stained preparations from the tissues, and those of artificial cultures from the lung, kidney, and liver were very short oval rods, resembling in all respects the bacteria previously studied by Professor Galtier in outbreaks in pigs.

In a later report the distinguished French professor claims that he has absolutely proved the correctness of his conclusion that the sheep-disease in the foregoing cases was pneumo-enteritis naturally transmitted from the pig. Cultures made from the diseased sheep have excited in young pigs the symptoms of the natural disease, and he has isolated an identical organism from a pig suffering from pneumo-enteritis naturally contracted.

But further, Professor Galtier announces that the same disease is trans­missible to all the other ordinary domestic animals (goat, dog, fowls, calves, horse), and that epizootic abortion in cows, broncho - pneumonia of young calves, and what in France is known as typhoid fever (influenza) of the horse, may all be manifestations of this disease.

If, as seems almost certain, the French pneumo-enteritis is identical with the swine-fever of Great Britain and the United States, these conclusions of Professor Galtier will be received with reserve; for while attempts may not have been made to infect all the other domestic species with swine-fever, the opportunities for natural transmission, if these species were susceptible, are of daily occurrence in this country.

The explanation may possibly be found in the fact that Professor Galtier had in reality to do with a swine-disease not identical with any of the hitherto described porcine epizootics.