Prominent symptoms, asthenia and vertigo. Vary with cryptogam, merge into zymotic diseases. Causes: grain harvested damp and moulded, bluish or greenish, hay greenish white, brown or black, clover reddish, musty fodder, and diuresis, indigestion, gastric intestinal and systemic paresis, somnolence, delirium. Rusts, spring and summer, their evolution. Bunt, smut, produce fever and paralysis, spasms, abortions and dry gangrene, buccal erosions; evolution of ergot, honey dew on leguminous plants causing skin disease, bacterial ferments, diplococcus, streptococcus from foul water, causing enteritis. Symptoms: adynamic, dullness, blunted sense, pendent head, ears, eyelids, congested, yellow, ecchymosed conjunctiva, fever, tympany, colic, constipation, dung small, round, coated masses, vertigo, sometimes fatal diarrhœa, or colliquative diuresis; vertiginous: fever, anorexia, yellow mucosæ, tardy breathing, costiveness colics, stupor, somnolence, giddiness, heavy steps, stumbling, delirium, push head against wall, clinch jaws, grind teeth, make walking or trotting or plunging motions, or pull on halter and fall, amaurosis, paralysis, coma. Remissions. Death in one day or upward. Resumption of functions and recovery. Diagnosis: from meningo-encephalitis. Lesions: gastro-intestinal congestion, infiltration, ecchymosis, fermenting ingesta, congestion of mesenteric glands, liver, brain and meninges. Leucin and tyrosin in urine. Treatment: stomach pump, antiferments, potassium iodide, purgatives, enemata; for brain, bleeding, sedatives, ice, snow, elevation, derivatives, prevent mechanical injury.
The most prominent features of cryptogamic poisoning in these animals are asthenia and vertigo. In dealing with such poisoning, however, we must bear in mind that we have in hand, not one particular disease but a group, differing among themselves according to the cryptogam and its products which may be present:—a group moreover which overlaps more or less the true zymotic diseases.
Causes. Oats, barley and other grain or fodder which has been put up damp, and especially ground feed, becomes speedily overgrown and permeated with moulds, especially penicillium glaucus, aspergillus flavus and glaucus, mucor racemosus, and ascophora mucedo which give a bluish or greenish color and heavy odor, rob it of its nutritive constituents and charge it with toxic products. On mouldy hay it is common to find aspergillus candidus, botrytis grisea, torula herbariorum, and eurotium herbarium which form a greenish white or brownish dust. The spœria herbarium is characterized by small black or brown spots with yellowish, brown or black spores. The peronspora trifolium attacks growing clover (clover sickness) and isaria fuciformis the fescue grasses. The latter has a red color and mucous consistency and is charged with producing fatal poisoning in cattle.
Mouldy or musty oats, or other grain or fodder have long been notorious for producing diuresis in horses with excessive elimination of phosphates, extreme emaciation, weakness and death. In other seasons, and probably because of a difference in the fungi or their products they have caused widespread enzootics of indigestion with paresis of stomach and bowels, and of the systemic muscles. Paraplegia is a common manifestation, suggesting lesions of the spinal cord, and in other cases there are general paresis, somnolence and delirium suggesting cerebral lesions, (Staggers).
Gillespie records an enzootic of gastro-intestinal indigestion and tympany among the horses of a battery of artillery in Afghanistan from eating mouldy grass. Fröhner, Martin and Varnell have seen cases of poisoning by moulds without digestive, urinary or febrile troubles.
Of rusts growing on grain crops there are two chief varieties; the spring rust (uredo rubigo vera) which commences as light yellow patches on the leaves and stems, which change to black as the fungus approaches maturity; and the summer rust (uredo linearis) which grows to a larger size and assumes a browner color. Each of these passes through an evolutionary cycle, the small preliminary patches (uredo) passing into the mature fungus (puccinia rubigo vera and puccinia graminis.) Then it must pass through an alternate generation on another family of plants before it can again grow on the gramineæ.
Bunt produced by the tilletia caries attacks the grasses and small grains. The growing seed (wheat especially) is changed into a black or olive colored powder, having a fishy odor. If the stems are attacked the leaves become pale, withered and dry. It can only be detected by carefully examining the individual seeds.
Other forms of smut are the ustilago carbo and ustilago maidis the familiar black smuts of small grains and maize. These develop by preference in the growing seeds, but also in the stem and leaves. The tilletia caries is as a rule more poisonous than the ustilago the effects being mainly hyperthermia and paralysis. There is, however, a tendency to spasmodic contractions, and abortions, and dry gangrene will occur from smut. The author has seen a large herd of cattle attacked with gangrenous sores around the coronet, which were promptly stopped when the light, smutty ears of corn were no longer given. In other cases the hoof was in part separated from the quick and creaked when the animal walked.
In connection with the gangrenous ergotism of cattle, the author has found on the same farms and feed, horses with ulcers on the buccal mucosa and gastro-intestinal indigestion. Ergot affects the seeds in nearly all the small graminaeæ and is produced by the claviceps purpurea which first attacks the ovary of the seed (sphacelia stage), then it invades the whole seed which grows out from the glumes as a hard, dark or purple spur-like process (ergot stage), then falling on the ground it grows up as a minute stalk with rounded head containing spores.
Honey dew growing on leguminous plants is reputed to cause skin disease in white horses and on the white spots of dark horses, from which those not eating the diseased plants escaped.
Bacterial ferments have an equally bad reputation. Bastin records the poisoning of five foals by fermented rye; Dieckerhoff describes an acute gastro-enteritis with congestion and swelling of liver, spleen and kidneys, as the result of microbes and their products in the fodders. Galtier traced a pneumoenteritis in the horse to two cocci, a motile diplococcus and non-motile streptococcus. Both stained in aniline colors, and were bleached by iodine. They grew in ordinary culture media above 50° F. but most freely at 98° F. The animals were infected by drinking putrid water or spoiled fodders in which the microbes were contained. The change to boiled water in the former case led to their prompt disappearance. Reynal, Cailleux and Foucher have also adduced instances of severe enteritis in the horse from drinking putrid water. These animals showed active congestion of the intestinal mucosa with abundant infiltration of the submucosa.
Bouley found 14 cases in one stable, the owner of which had marketed the good fodder and kept the spoiled for home use. Barthelemy, Alasonniere, Lombroso and Hausmann, Clichy, Rey, Gamgee and others give similar examples.
A large number of observations show the dangerous results on the horse of mouldy bread, inducing colics, vertigo, profuse sweating.
Symptoms. When Adynamia prevails there is great dullness and depression, the senses are blunted, the head depressed resting on the manger, the eyes sunken, weeping and half covered by the drooping upper lid, the conjunctiva is congested, sometimes yellow or marked by petechiæ. The mouth is hot, the lower lips pendent, the tongue furred, the abdomen somewhat tympanitic, with slight colics, but with little rumbling or indication of peristalsis. There is a primary constipation, a few small, hard pellets being passed with effort. The temperature may be 102° to 104°, breathing short, pulse small, weak; the walk unsteady, the animal preferring to stand, completely apathetic. In some cases a profuse diarrhœa sets in and may prove fatal.
In the cases attended by diuresis, the weakness is extreme, emaciation advancing rapidly, but the other symptoms of nervous depression are less marked, the poisons being apparently eliminated by the kidneys (see diuresis).
In the Vertiginous form the disease may set in with more or less hyperthermia, anorexia, a dislike particularly of the spoiled fodder, yellowness of the visible mucosæ, slow breathing, small accelerated pulse, costiveness, tympany, colics more or less intense, tenderness of the belly, and sooner or later marked nervous disorder. This may be in the form of stupor, the head resting in the manger, the senses are manifestly clouded, the animal walks unsteadily, staggers, steps heavily, striking the feet against obstacles, and stumbling. At the end of a variable number of hours (2 to 6 or 8 after feeding) nervous excitability and vertigo may supervene. He may push the head against the wall, the jaws clenched, grinding the teeth, the eyes fixed, pupils dilated, facial muscles contracted, respirations hurried, heart palpitating and the skin perspiring. He may continue in this position, moving his feet as if walking, or he may rear plunging his feet into the manger or fall back over, and rising push anew against any object he may come in contact with. Coulbaux speaks of rabiform symptoms such as attempts to bite but any such deliberate purpose is rare.
There may follow complete amaurosis, insensibility to pricking of the skin, and even paralysis or coma. Hyperæsthesia may also be temporarily present.
Course. Remissions and exacerbations usually alternate, the duration of the former furnishing some criterion by which to establish a favorable prognosis. Death may take place in 24 hours or it may be delayed for several days. Recovery is usually heralded by the resumption of defecation and urination, and the return of appetite. It is liable to be at first only partial, some of the senses remaining dull, or a general stupor persisting.
Diagnosis. In all such forms of poisoning there is the history of the ingestion of the toxic matters, and in any suspicious looking cases a careful examination of the food should be made. From meningo-encephalitis the presence of the abdominal disorder will serve to identify and to incriminate the food.
Lesions. These vary much with the poison. There is always, however, inflammation of the gastro-intestinal mucous membrane, usually with ecchymosis, and infiltration of the submucosa. The contents of the bowels are imperfectly digested, the mesenteric glands congested and enlarged, the liver congested and softened, and the brain and its meninges hyperæmic or infiltrated. The leucine and tyrosine present in the urine during the acute attack is said to disappear when improvement sets in (Pellagi, Azzaroli).
Treatment. The first object must be the removal or neutralizing of the poison. In some instances the stomach pump or tube might be tried. Usually one must fall back on antiferments such as naphthol, naphthalin, salol, salicylic acid, and above all iodide of potassium. The last checks the growth of the fungi or bacteria and favors elimination of the toxins. It may be given freely to act on the kidneys. Creolin, 1¼ drachm, repeated three times a day has been found effective (Albrecht). In addition the action of the bowels may be solicited by full doses of sulphate of soda and abundance of water.
When the brain is implicated Cadeac recommends bleeding as an eliminating as well as a sedative measure. In any case use cold water, snow or ice to the head, elevation of the head, and purgatives which may as a rule be doubled. Potassium iodide or other antiseptics should be pushed, and diuresis as well as a relaxed condition of the bowels maintained. Counter-irritants such as mustard may be applied to the abdomen, and enemata used at frequent intervals. It is important to fix the patient to a ring in the centre of a box stall or barn to keep him from injuring himself.
Moulds and bacteria in brewer’s grains, or the marc of beet sugar or cider factories derange digestion, or cause abortion. Spoiled potatoes cause enteritis, vertigo, palsy, in sheep, nephritis and cystitis. Mouldy bread causes indigestion, urinary and nervous disorder. Mildew. Musty grain and fodder as in the horse. Ergot causes winter and spring gangrene of skin, feet, limbs, ears or tail, lethargy, palsy, spasms, delirium, abortion; variation in toxicity with stage and condition of growth, privation or liberal supply of water, or succulent vegetables. Symptoms: varying, mouldy bread causes digestive and urinary trouble, with marc or ensilage, develops slowly, impaired appetite, salivation, tympany, colic, diarrhœa, debility, paresis, spasms, delirium. Duration, 5 hours to 2 weeks. Gangrenous ergotism, necrotic sore, slough hard, dry, leathery, black, living parts at demarcation line pink or purple, puffed up, tender, necrosis involves all soft tissues and bone; nervous form: abortion form. Lesions: congestion of stomach, bowels, mesenteric glands, brain and meninges, petechiæ. Diagnosis, from anthrax, from coccidian hemorrhagic dysentery, from foot and mouth disease, from rinderpest. Prevention, stop or regulate the injurious fodder, salt and pack the fresh grains or marc. Treatment: antiferments, potassium iodide, saline purgatives, stimulants, oil of turpentine, injections, derivatives.
Causes. The growth of moulds on or in brewer’s grains, which have been preserved without salting and close packing, has at times rendered them dangerous poisons (Duvieusart, Wehenkel, Schütz). The refuse or marc of beet sugar factories, or of cider works may act in a similar manner. These products, at first neutral or only slightly acid, undergo an acid fermentation, with an abundant production of acetic, lactic or butyric acid which adds materially to their action in deranging digestion. These agents usually require a large amount to prove deleterious, about 150 to 200 lbs. a day. Arloing found three active microbian ferments in the pulp of the sugar factories, and four in that of the distilleries. The marc of apples has even caused abortion (Cornevin).
Spoiled potatoes have caused adynamic enteritis, with vertigo and paralysis (Zimmermann, Grabin, Holme) and in sheep symptoms of nephritis and cystitis as well (Kloss).
Mouldy bread has been found to cause indigestion and cerebral disturbances in cows (Cagny) or nervous disorders without digestive, urinary or febrile trouble (Fröhner, Martin and Varnell).
Mildew on the leaves of a grapevine has also poisoned six cows (Bisseauge).
Musty grain and fodder has the same general action as on the horse and produces paraplegia and other nervous disorders with or without digestive troubles.
The isaria fuciformis has caused the death of cattle which ate the grasses infested by it.
When we come to the ergots and smuts we find even more evidence of poisoning than in the horse. Toward the end of our long winters in the Northern States we occasionally find widespread gangrenous ergotism from eating infested hay, the lesions varying from simple sores around the top of the hoofs, in the interdigital spaces or on the teats and mouth, to loosening of part of the sole or wall, shedding of the entire hoof or sloughing of the entire limb—just above the hoof, at the fetlock, or in the metatarsal region. Portions of the tail or ears will similarly slough. This appears to be mainly due to the lessening of the calibre of the capillaries by contraction of their walls, under the action of the ergotin and secalin, seconded by the cold of the season. Cold is, however, by no means essential to its production. The other most common form of ergotism is the action on the nervous system. The contraction of the cerebral capillaries and disturbance of the circulation lead in some cases to a condition of lethargy and apathy in which the animal fails to eat or ruminate and gradually falls into marasmus, or paralysis may be induced, or delirium and spasms. Then finally there is the familiar form of abortion induced apparently by the contraction of the involuntary muscles of the womb and of its capillary vessels.
There is, however, a great difference of opinion as to the deleterious action of ergot. Various experiments with large doses of ergot on pregnant animals have failed to produce any sign of abortion. The agent, however, varies in its nature according to the conditions under which it grew and the stage at which it was collected, so that the failure to produce the expected result in a given case can by no means be accepted as disproving its pathogenic properties under other conditions.
The same remarks apply largely to the action of the smuts, which are often eaten in large quantities with impunity, especially if plenty of water or succulent vegetables are allowed, whereas under other conditions as in winter, under the action of cold, with the usual water supply frozen up, and no succulent food, it proves very destructive.
Symptoms. These vary with the particular poison: With mouldy bread the symptoms may come on promptly with indigestion, tympany, constipation, marked irritation of the urinary organs, and it may be nervous disorder. Sometimes, as noted above, the narcotic action is shown with paresis or paralysis and stupor without any manifest disorder on the part of the digestive or urinary functions.
Most commonly with mouldy fodders, grains, marc, or ensilage the results are tardily developed and only after long continued use of the spoiled food. There is then loss of appetite, and rumination, drivelling of saliva, some tympany, and abdominal pain shown by frequent movement of the hind limbs, lying down and rising. The bowels may be costive at first, but this early gives place to a fœtid diarrhœa, with weak rapid pulse (100 per minute) palpitations and hurried breathing. The walk becomes weak, unsteady, staggering or stumbling, and there may appear marked paresis especially of the hind parts. When nervous excitement sets in there may be twitching of the muscles of the neck, shoulders or thigh; the eye rolls or becomes fixed and the pupils are dilated; the muscles of the face are contracted and the jaws clinched, with grinding of the teeth. Bellowing or pushing of the teeth and nose, the forehead or horns against the wall or other obstacles, or the dashing violently against obstacles is occasionally observed, and indicates in most cases an unfavorable termination.
The duration of the malady is uncertain. It may not be over five or six hours in acute cerebral cases, and especially in sheep, and again it may be prolonged for one or two weeks. Death often takes place in convulsions.
In gangrenous ergotism a necrotic sore with more or less surrounding swelling may be seen, and a line of demarcation forms of a pink or purplish aspect along which the separation of the dead tissue takes place. The slough is usually of a dark red or black color, the red globules having apparently migrated into the tissues and piled up in the capillaries in the early stages of stagnation. When the line of separation is higher, the line of demarcation completely encircles the limb, the inflammation and swelling is very marked just above this line, the skin and soft tissues beneath drying and withering up into a dark red leathery mass, and this is gradually separated by the formation of a granulating surface above. The process of separation takes place much more slowly through the bony tissues, and not unfrequently the soft tissues having become detached, the lower part of the limb is separated at the first joint below the line of demarcation and the bone from that line down to its free end remains as a projecting necrosed stump. In the ear or tail the necrotic portion withers up into a stiff rigid shrunken slough which becomes detached sooner or later by mechanical violence.
In the nervous ergotism the symptoms are largely those of the adynamia, paresis and convulsions already described.
In abortion from ergotism there are usually few premonitory symptoms, and the occurrence is to be explained by the number of victims in a herd eating ergot or smut.
Lesions. These vary greatly. Usually the congestion and inflammation are most prominent in the abomasum and small intestine, complicated by ecchymosis and even extravasation which may so thicken the mucosa as to block the intestine (Walley). The mesenteric glands are usually gorged with blood and of a deep red. The brain may be nearly normal or violently congested and with its meninges covered with petechiæ.
Diagnosis. From anthrax this affection is distinguished by the absence of the specific large bacillus in the blood and of the marked enlargement of the spleen, by the great prominence of the nervous symptoms in many cases, and by the history of a dietetic cause.
From the coccidian hemorrhagic dysentery it is diagnosed by the absence of the coccidia in the stools and the predominance of the nervous systems.
From foot and mouth disease, the gangrenous ergotism is distinguished by the facts that the sores are in the nature of sloughs, and not vesicles, and that some members of the herd are almost certain to show sloughing of the limb at some distance above the hoof. More important still is the fact that the daintily feeding sheep and the pig kept in the same yards do not suffer from the ergotism.
From rinderpest it is differentiated by the fact that the sores on the mouth (when present) are not of the nature of epithelial concretions, and they do not appear on the vulva, and more significant still there is no indication of the introduction of the disease by contagion nor of its rapid progress from herd to herd. The immunity of sheep from gangrenous ergotism is another significant feature.
Prevention consists in putting a stop to the supply of the altered food or, if it must be given, in giving it in small quantities only with abundance of water or fresh succulent aliment. In the case of grains or marcs the fermentation may be checked by adding ¼ per cent. of common salt and packing the material firmly in a close box or silo.
In ergotism, succulent food, water ad libitum, stimulants, poultices, fomentations or wet bandages, a warm building and pure air are all important. Usually ergot and smut can be safely fed in relatively large amount with a liberal ration of potatoes, turnips, beets, green food or ensilage.
Treatment does not differ materially from that advised for the horse. Antiferments including potassium iodide, and saline purgatives stand at the head of the list. Stimulants may be demanded to rouse the torpid bowels and nervous system and unless contraindicated by gastro-intestinal inflammation oil of turpentine offers itself as at once stimulant, antiseptic and eliminating. Injections and counter-irritants are of use. Then cold (ice, snow, water) to the head, and the confinement of the patient so that he cannot injure himself or others are not to be neglected.