THE CAUSE OF DISTEMPER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2692, 18 October 1905, Page 35

THE CAUSE OF DISTEMPER.

1 During the last 40 years much labour hai been bestowed on the study of the cause oi this malady, and up to now a great un-s-certainty exists, as to whether oneor more, or even several, diseases are included undei the generic term of " distemper." It seems, however, very probable that it includes seve ral different diseases, and veterinary 6ur> geons seem to be not much wiser than th< general public. A few years ago a claitf was put forward by Professor Ligmeres and Dr Phisalix, two French scientists, as being the discoverers of the causal microbe and introducers of vaccines for its prevention. It appears their micro-oi^anism is a cocco-baciilus that is visible under the microscope, and capable of being cultivated outsid-e the body in test tubes of peptonised broth. Now we are informed that Mons. H. Carre, a young assistant to the director of the studies of contagious diseases at the Alfort Veterinary School, near Paris, ha* demonstrated that the virus of the disease passes through the very porous bacteriological filter, that he micro-organism is invisible under he microscope, and that the material passing through the filter, when ! injected under the skin of young dogs, doe.* not cause any swelling:, but produces fever, emaciation, discharge from the eyes and nostrils, and a beautiful eruption of largo pustules, commencing four or five days after ' the inoculation. Death was quite excep- | tional. He says the emaciation was considerable, and in some instances the animal , died from broncho-pneumonia. He adds j that the inoculation of the defibrinated ' blood of an animal infected' from the material passed through a filter into a fresh animal creates fever, eoryza, and pustu'es. When t various artificial culture media are inseminated with this same blood nothing grows in them. These experiments, carried out under the most rigid conditions of isolation, ha\e justified this authority in believing that distemper belongs to "the class of diseases having as their cause invisible microbes. We understand Dr Roux, director of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, has undertaken some experiments on this vexed question, and has come to the conclusion that the microbe is invisible and passes through the filter. The late Professor Trasbot maintained that the " true malady" could be produced j by inoculation of the nasal discharge, or ■ of the contents of the skin pustule, and the symptoms appeared in four or five days. After an extensive and prolonged study for 40 years he still held to his first view, thatthe true disease was a variola, or smalj-pox, of the dog, which was frequently confounded with another disease, which he termed hi ■ .grippe, canine influenza, or infectious pneumonia. Similar views to these were, and are stii , held by the veteran editor of L'Elevev.r, ' Mons. Pierre Megnin, a very eminent veterinary surgeon and scientktj who says the " gourme" of young dogs is confounded with la grippe, or malignant eatarrhal lever of young Jogs distemper of the English, and hundestaupe of the Germans. The word , "gourme" corresponds to the measles of ' children, or strangles of horses. Ho di vides the disease into several forms. »<■ ing to the symptoms: — 1. Bronchioj-naso-ophthalmic form, will) v discharge from the eyes and nose, accompanied with bronchitis. 2.- The intestinal or bowel form. 3. The eruptive form, which has three classes of eruption. (1) Pustules, size of a hemp secJ. split pea, or small bean, resembling s pock eruption. (2) The eczematc — impetiginous form. (3) The formation of small abscesses unj der the skin, resembling follicular j mange. He says la grippe, contagious pneumonia, 1 or- kennel or show typhus is not a disease peculiar to young dogs, as it attacks dogi of all agee. We ourselves do not subscribe to the view that the dog should be the only animal having one contagious disease, since seeing that all other animals and mankind have several infectious diseases, may of them being eruptive maladies. Certainly our dog books on this question are nil v only one contagious fever — namely, distemper — being described. It appears that we have at least three — namely, typhus, small-pox, and influenza, included tinder one heading. MAN-HUNT BY BLOODHOUNDS. I From Bucharest comes the story _of an ' escaped Russian deserter named Krasnoff, of the 3rd Bessarabian Rifles, who has given < a local reporter a thrilling account of his experiences during his flight to the frontier, writes the Daily Mirror. "I left on June 12," said Krasnoff, "together with a corporal of our battalion, who I expect is dead by this. "We changed our uniform at my mother's, five miles down the Pruth road, and thought we had got clear away. But just as we were leaving the house three mounted military police galloped down the road. Wo crouched in a ditch, and then, cramped with Ion"; waiting, made off across the field obliquely towards the river. "When we first caught a glimpse of the river we fell on our knees and began to pray, but our thanks to God were premature, for we heard suddenly on the north-east wind the baying of dogs. "'We remembered then that the last deserter from our regiment had been caughtand neaiiy torn to pieces by bloodhounds. .... W T e Lad taken off our boots to ! ease our feet, and, throwing them behind • us, started running. "We raced across a bare plain, covered with prickly grass, with an occasional tree, and, as we ran panting, with a strange throbbing in the throat, I imagined that I already felt the fangs of the Tsar's bloodhounds in my back. "However, they had not seen us. But as we crossed the last hillock Khorostieff turned I his head, and, seeing the doge coming over the hilltop, screamed to me to 'get up the tee. . , . I ran oil alone for a hundred" yards, and plunging into the water swam a hundred yards down and hid in the shade of the bank. There I lay still and looked back. "Khorostieff had evidently climbed his tree, for there were the great dogs and four soldiers at the fooi. I heard the men shouting. I suppose they were telling Khorostieff. to^come down. Then they waited about five! minutes and shouted again, and the dogsj bayed all the time. Then «p went a rifle;?

'■~ - there was a shoj, and Khorostieff tumble headlong- into the men's arms." ♦ ;