FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE IN VICTORIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3572, 28 June 1872, Page 3

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE IN VICTORIA.

The Argus of June 14 says:—The commission appointed to report upon the best means of extirpating the foot and mouth disease iu cattle held its first meeting yesterday at the Custom House. The official report of the three veterinary surgeons appointed by the Government to visit the infected farms was presented. It stated that on the 12th instant they had carefully examined some cattle on Mr Bowman’s farm at Wyndham, and finding that they were infected with the foot and mouth disease had authorised the chief inspector of sheep to slaughter them and the pigs. They had also requested him to have the manure and rubbish burnt or buried, the sheds and horses disinfected, and the farm placed iu quarantine. Later in the day a telegram was received from Mr Curr, intimating that these instruction* had been carried out. After deliberating some time, the commission resolved, on the motion of Mr R. M'Dougall, to visit to-day certain farms known to be.infected, with the view of learning whether the disease had spread beyond them. It was further decided to recommend the Government to print a large number of copies of the Act which has recently been passed, and cause them to be circulated in all the boroughs, shires, and road '’istricts in the colony, and also to have them posted up at all police stations and in the most conspicuous places in the various country towns and districts. It will be suggested in addition that the placards shall contain a description in plain language of the leading symptoms of the disease as described by Professor M'Bride of the Cirencester Agricultural College. Another important step has been taken by the commission. The owners of the animals which were imported with the bull which communicated the disease to the cattle on the Werribee have been written to, and requested to report at once as to the condition of their cattle. It will be recommended, we have reason to believe, that the places where these imported cattle now are be placed in quarantine for a certain period, no matter what the present state of the stock may be. It is reported, we may add, that the foot-and-mouth disease has broken out in a fresh quarter, but the precise locality has not been divulged. The same paper also contains the following : As there seems considerable danger of this formidable malady breaking out amongst stock in fresh localities, a description of the symptoms presented by animals suffering from the vesicular aphtha will be read with interest by stockowners. The following has been furnished by Mr Graham Mitchell, veterinary surgeon:— “ The foot-and-mouth disease is an eruptive febrile affection, and may be classed amongst the exanthemata. These diseases are generally found affecting animals once in a lifetime. These fevers run a certain ascertained course, having several stages in their development, and are generally fatal when internal organs are involved ; and are all highly contagious. The symptoms attending the development of murrain are well marked—• there are more or less symptoms of general fever, indicated by the animal temperature being alternately increased or diminished, with disinclination to feed; rumination may be more or less arrested according to the extent the mouth and tongue are involved. In eon-, noxion with the fever we have an eruption vesicular in its nature, occurring in those parts of the skin most vascular —between the digits on the udder, inside the thighs on the dental pad, and along the sides and surface of the tongue and bucal membrane. Occasionally this eruption extends from the mouth into the cesophagus stomachs, and intestinol canal. As the effect of this eruption there is a profuse discharge of frothy saliva, frequently mixed with blood from the rupture of vesicles and abrasion of the exposed surface. Lameness is early present, and in severe cases persistent, the state of the feet frequently tending more to prevent recovery than aught else. The vesicles present themselves.botween the digits, and especially at the posterior part of the coronary substance at the upper and back part

of the hoof. While in the second stages, the hoof begins to loosen its attachments to the parts beneath, and not unfrequently is removed altogether. In neglected cases, not only the hoof, but the bones contained, may part connexion with their fellows. The vesicles generally disappear in the course of a week or ten days, and occasionally they slightly suppurate. Although the eruption may thus early terminate, the fever may continue, and a tardy recovery, or a fatal termination, may occur. The udder in milch cows becomes indurated and structurally altered. The joints of the extremities, or some internal organ, probably the liings, are the situations where the disease is apt to locate itself. This malady may bo communicated to the human subject, and all domesticated animals, by using the milk from cows and animals suffering from the disease, or otherwise exposed to the influence of contagion. I have resided during the last three years in Calcutta, and during that time have hod opportunities of seeing this disease in all stages. On one occasion I treated about 250 working bullocks belonging to a Government brick factory, and from early and energetic treatment few deaths occurred; but such a disease appearing in our bush herds would prove most disastrous, and quite as troublesome and fatal as pleuro-pneumonia.”