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.

    631/690 (page 545)
    moment to be confounded with the fury of the same animal suffering- from meningitis or any other trouble of the brain. But in rabies there is a volition, a premeditated method, in the attacks which the animal will make, which is not found in the other diseases. Between, the attacks of fury the animal may become calm for a variable period. The writer attended a case in which, after a violent attack of an hour,, the horse was sufficiently calm to be walked ten miles and only developed violence again an hour after being placed in the new stable.. In the period of fury the horse will bite at the reopened original wound; it will rear and attempt to break its halter and fastenings; it will bite at the woodwork and surrounding objects in the stable. If the animal lives long enough it shows paralytic symptoms and falls to> the ground, unable to use two or more of its extremities, but in the majority of cases, in its excesses of violence, it does physical injury to* itself. It breaks its jaws in biting at the manger or fractures other bones in throwing itself on the ground and dies of hemorrhage or internal injuries. At times throughout the course of the disease there is an excessive sensibility of the skin which, if irritated by the touch, will bring on attacks of violence. The animal may have appetite and desire water throughout the course of the disease, but on attempting to swallow has a spasm of the throat, which renders the act impossible. This latter condition, which is common in all rabid animals, has given* the disease the name of hydrophobia (fear of water). In a case under the care of the writer a horse, four weeks after being bitten on the forearm by a rabid dog, developed local irritation in the healed wound and tore it with its teeth into a large ulcer. This- was healed by local treatment in ten days and the horse was kept under surveillance for over a month. On the advice of another prac- titioner the horse was taken home and put to work, and within three* days it developed violent symptoms and had to be destroyed. Diagnosis.—The diagnosis of rabies in the horse is to be made from the various brain troubles to which the animal is subject; first, by- the history of a previous bite of a rabid animal or inoculation by other means; second, by the evident volition and consciousness on the part of the animal in its attacks, offensive and defensive, on persons, animals, or other disturbing surroundings. The irritation and reopening of the* original wound or point of inoculation is a valuable factor in diagnosis. Recovery from rabies may be considered as a question of the cor- rectness of the original diagnosis. Rabies is always fatal. Treatment.—No remedial treatment has ever been successful. All of the anod3mes and anesthetics, opium, belladonna, bromide of potash* ether, chloroform, etc., have been used without avail. The prophy- lactic treatment of successive inoculations is being used on human- beings, and has experimentally proved efficacious in dogs, but would bo impracticable in the horse unless the conditions were quite exceptional. 14384—03 35