Special report on diseases of the horse / by Drs. Pearson [and others].

Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Special report on diseases of the horse / by Drs. Pearson [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    581/690 (page 499)
    eastward to the Atlantic and westward to California. It is now a per- manent disease in our large cities, selecting for the continuance of its virulence young or especially susceptible horses which pass through the large and ill-ventilated and uncleaned stables of dealers and assumes, from time to time, an enzootic form, when from some reason its viru- lence increases. It assumes this form also when, from reasons of rural economy and commerce, large numbers of young and more susceptible animals are exposed to its contagion. Etiology.—As one attack is self-protective, numbers of old horses, having had an earlier attack, are not capable of contracting it again; but, aside from this, young horses, especialty those about four or five years of age, are much more predisposed to be attacked, while the older ones, even if they have not had the disease, are less liable to it. Again, the former age is that in which the horse is brought from the farm, where it has been free from the risk of exposure, and is sold to pass through the stables of the country taverns, the dirty, infected railway cars, and the foul stockyards and damp stables of dealers in our large cities. Want of training is a predisposing cause. Overfed, fat, young horses which have just come through the sales stables are much more susceptible to contagion than the same horses are after a few months of steady work. Pilger, in 1805, was the first to recognize infection as the direct cause of the disease. Roll and others studied the contagiousness of influenza, and, finding it so much more virulent and permanent in old stables than elsewhere, classed it as a “stall miasm.” The atmosphere is the most common carrier of the infection from sick animals to healthy ones, and through it may be carried for a considerable distance. The conta- gion will remain in the straw bedding and droppings of the animal and in the feed in an infected stable for a considerable time, and if these are removed to other localities it may be carried in them. It may be carried in the clothing of those who have been in attendance on horses suffering from the disease. The drinking water in troughs and even running water may hold the virus and be a means of its communication to other animals, even at a distance. The studies of Dieckerhoff, in 1881, in regard to the contagion of influenza were especially interest- ing. He found that during a local enzootic, produced by the introduc- tion of horses suffering from influenza into an extensive stable other- wise perfectly healthy, the infection took place in what at first seemed to be a most irregular manner, but which was shown later to be depend- ent on the Ventilation and currents of air through the various build- ings. His experiments showed that the virus of influenza is exces- sively diffusible, and that it will spread rapidly to the roof of a building and pass by the apertures of ventilation to others in the neighborhood. The writer has seen cases that have appeared to spread through a brick wall and attack animals on the opposite side before others even in the