Foot-and-mouth disease

“ Foot-and-Mouth Disease FMD is considered the most contagious disease of livestock. Essentially all cloven-footed species are susceptible to FMDV. In some texts, the possibility of human infection is stated, but this has yet to be documented. Infected animals shed large quantities of virus into their surroundings for at least 7 days. Aerosol exposure is the major means of spread, particularly in temperate climates, where high humidity and moderate temperatures can favor long-distance airborne spread (Sellers and Parker 1969; Thomson 1994) . ”

“ Mycotic stomatitis occurs sporadically on widely separated farms, affecting only a few animals in each herd, and the lesions produced consist of erosions without the typical vesicular formations of foot-and-mouth disease. ”

“ At times when diseases appear in a country where they have not been prevalent it becomes advisable and necessary to protect the healthy herds by the slaughter of all the infected animals. Pursuance of this policy has resulted in control of the foot-and-mouth disease, and has proved to be a very satisfactory method of eradication. ”

“ Veterinarians who have had considerable experience with the disease among animals regard the human affection as by no means uncommon in countries where foot-and-mouth disease prevails, but the disturbance of health is usually too slight to come to the notice of the family physician. ”

“ In a similar way 205 persons were inoculated at Dover in 1884, and suffered from vesicles about the mouth.
Although foot-and-mouth disease is extremely benign in men, it is well to take every precaution against it.
Gastro-Intestinal Infections.—Cases have been recorded of gastro-intestinal infection in young animals and children in consequence of consuming milk which had undergone abnormal changes. Milk containing various kinds of microorganisms may at first produce lactic indigestion and afterwards diarrhœic enteritis. ”

“ The foot-and-mouth disease, comparatively, has never played such havoc as it does in Europe, and pneumonia, which is almost intractable to treatment in this part of the world, and which is frequently fatal when it is complicated with inflammation 42of the pleura, hardly ever appears in these parts, where stables and farms are not far off from being rudimentary in construction, and would appear to an English farmer, accustomed to the cosy-looking farmsteads of his own country, very ill-calculated for successful farming, and not at all adapted for bringing his cattle and horses to perfection ”

“ Foot-andmouth disease virus particles contain replicase protein 3D. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 91:733-737.
Patterson, W. C.; Jenny, E. W; and Holbrook, A. A. 1955. Experimental infections with vesicular stomatitis in swine. I. Transmission by direct contact and feeding infected meat scraps. In Proc 59th Annu Meet US Livest Sanit Assoc, pp. 368-378. Pereira, H. G. 1977. Subtyping of foot-and-mouth disease virus. In Developments in Biological Standardization. Ed. ”

“ Diseased animals should be sheltered, and fed on nourishing food, especially gruels of oatmeal flour or linseed; acidulated water may be allowed. If there is sloughing of the skin or extensive sores, oxide of zinc ointment should be applied. But treatment should not be adopted unless there is general infection over a wide extent of country. All diseased animals should be destroyed, as well as those which have been in contact with them, and thorough disinfection resorted to.
Foot-rot is a disease of the claws of sheep. ”

“ This would explain better than any existing hypothesis the persistent course of the disease and its proneness to recur after the most skillfully devised operation, while the almost constant limitation of the disease to the declining years of life corresponds mainly to lessened resistance in the bodily organism, and partly perhaps to senile absorption of the palmar fat cushion and atrophy of the protective thickening of the epidermis. The almost complete immunity of the foot is accounted for by the protection afforded by the shoes and stockings. ”

“ Inflammation is produced, which causes contraction and the consequent, derangement of the whole foot. If the free natural expansion of the foot, and the spreading of the quarters in proportion to the growth of the hoof is prevented by the nailing of the shoe, irritation of the fleshy substance between the crust and coffin-bone will result, and ultimately create so much diseased action of the parts as to cause contraction and navicular disease. ”

“ Another very prevalent cause is faulty shoeing, although it sometimes happens that it results from other diseases of the foot, as, for instance, thrush, side bones, corns, etc. The disease is indicated by a pinched and shrunken frog, high heels, long bars, straight walls, and hoof so dry that it is almost impossible to cut it. The treatment consists first of all of preventive measures. The feet are kept moist and the horn is prevented from drying out by the use of moist sawdust, occasional poultices of boiled turnips, and a free use of greasy hoof ointments to the sole and walls of the feet. ”

“ Adenoids, diseased teeth, inflamed ears, may furnish the food supply. "There is no use treating children and sending them on fresh-air trips as long as they have nutritional and digestive disturbances due to bad teeth, or colds due to adenoids," said a physician when examining a party of children for a summer outing. The great preventive measure to be taken for catching diseases, colds, diseased glands,—in fact all germ diseases,—is the repeated cleansing of those portions of the human body in which germs may find lodgment,—the mouth, the nose, the eyes, and the ears. ”

“ Here we have a disease always exhibiting the same symptoms, more or less peculiar to one class of animal, always with a similar characteristic appearance and smell, always obstinately refractory to treatment, showing always a tendency to spread to the other feet of the same animal, and often to the feet of other animals near enough to become infected, and always cured—when cured it is—by a treatment which may be summed up in two words as 'rigid antisepsis.' Other diseases, with points in common with this, have been directly proved to be due to a specific cause. ”

“ The six year molars need special care as they are likely to decay early. Even the milk teeth often need filling so that they will not be lost too soon.
Bad Teeth cause Sickness.—When anything decays, it is full of germs, and they are always giving off some poison. The poison may hurt the body and is likely to make parts of the mouth sore and tender so that other germs of disease can break through into the flesh. Disease germs can easily lodge in the holes of decaying teeth, grow in numbers, and finally cause diphtheria, sore throat, or other ailments. ”

“ Wounds resulting from objects more or less covered with dirt are particularly dangerous, since under such circumstances the germs of lockjaw are apt to be introduced into the body, and fatal consequences not uncommonly ensue. It is astonishing how frequently the disease just referred to follows where a barefooted child sticks a dirty splinter or a rusty nail into its foot, and it cannot be too strongly urged that it is the duty of the parent in such instances to call in a competent physician at once. ”

“ The disease then becomes insidious and more pronounced, the nodding of the head, even at a walk, more exaggerated, and, in fact, the animal seems afraid to put his foot to the ground, and much resembles a horse with an abscess in his foot, either from prick or picked up nail. He absolutely nurses his foot. There is a certain amount of heat always present. The disease being now well developed, pressure is caused by the ends of the navicular bone, and they become involved at their points by bony deposits. The causes of this disease I attribute, firstly, to hereditary predisposition ”

“ At first the attacks of the disease are confined to one foot only: afterwards both feet become affected, though seldom at the same time; but when the inflammation appears in one, it generally disappears in the other, and as the disease continues to recur, it not only affects both feet at once, but is felt in the other joints, especially those in the upper and lower extremities, so that there is scarcely a joint in the body that is not on one occasion or other affected. ”

“ That there is no actual disease or alteration in structure of the deep layers of the keratogenous apparatus. It is only the superficial, or horn-secreting, layer that concerns us. (2) That the disease of this superficial layer is infection with a material that may reasonably be presumed to be infective.
Put thus, treatment of canker would at first sight appear to be easy. One would imagine that a simple and long-continued soaking of the entire foot in a strong enough antiseptic would be all that was needed. ”

“ Suppurative parotitis may be due to direct spread of infection from the mouth along the parotid duct, or to extension of suppurative processes from the temporo-mandibular joint, the jaw, or a lymph gland. It is liable to occur also in the course of any disease in which there is an infection of the blood with pyogenic bacteria, and has been met with in diphtheria, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles, and other eruptive fevers. ”

“ All the ills that flesh is heir to are not caused by mouth-infection, but enough of them are to more than justify a vigorous and world-wide campaign for the better care of the teeth and for a thorough search for mouth-infection in every case of obscure disease. ”

“ The sole of the foot is a very delicate surface; a great many nerves and blood vessels center in the instep, and any injury to these may produce the disease called lockjaw, which usually results fatally. Even if nothing so serious as this happens, the foot is often injured by bruising or by other hurts. The feet are susceptible to chill, especially in the rainy season, when they should be kept dry and warm. Disease is often taken through the feet, especially such diseases as the bubonic plague, and the different 70kinds of itch which are known in the tropics. ”

“ The wound should be thoroughly cleansed, and washed with some mild disinfectant, after which a small quantity of oil of turpentine should be injected, and the wound packed with calomel or iodoform and covered with a pledget of cotton. If the wound is very deep or extensive it may be beneficial, after thoroughly cleansing the foot, to apply a hot bran or flaxseed poultice. Use poultice for several days and change daily.
GREASE HEEL. —A form of eczema that attacks the skin of the heel and fetlock. Sometimes the disease becomes so severe as to crack open, from which blood oozes out. ”

“ For instance, the third commonest point of attack of the tubercle bacillus, after the lungs and the glands, is the bones and joints, as illustrated in the sadly familiar "white-swelling of the knee" and hip-joint disease. All the so-called septic organisms, which produce suppuration and blood-poisoning in wounds and surgery, may, and very frequently do, attack the joints; while nearly all the common infections, such as typhoid, scarlet fever, pneumonia, and even measles, [Pg 319] influenza, and tonsillitis, may be followed by severe joint symptoms. ”

“ Instead, however, of the dog beginning to wander, as previously mentioned, the animal becomes paralyzed, the paralysis first affecting the muscles of the jaw, later of the tongue. As is the case in the furious type of the disease, the animal loses the power to swallow both solids and liquids, but has no fear of water. The mouth remains wide open, the tongue protruding, and an abundant amount of thick saliva exudes. The animal remains quiet, does not attempt to bite any animal or individual. Death occurs on the second or third day of the disease. ”

“ More or less lameness is a constant symptom, and sometimes the feet become very much diseased and the animal is so crippled that it has to be destroyed. It is often fatal to young animals. It is transmitted by the saliva and the discharges from the vesicles, though all the secretions and excretions are doubtless infective, as well as all articles and places soiled by them. This disease can be produced by injecting the saliva, or the lymph of the vesicles, into the blood or the peritoneal cavity. ”

“ Infection takes place through an abrasion of the skin, and the disease usually occurs on the feet of adult males who work barefooted in the fields.
Clinical Features.—The disease begins on the foot as an indurated patch, which becomes discoloured and permeated by black or yellow nodules containing the organism. These nodules break down by suppuration, and numerous minute abscesses lined by granulation tissues are thus formed. In the pus are found yellow particles likened to fish-roe, or black pigmented granules like gunpowder. ”

“ Young and immature animals are more prone to attacks of infectious diseases than are old and mature animals. Hog-cholera usually affects the young hogs in the herd first, while scours, suppurative joint disease and infectious sore mouth are diseases that occur during the first few days or few weeks of the animal's life. Lung and intestinal parasites are more commonly found in the young, growing animals. Old animals are prone to fractures of bones and degenerative changes of the body tissues. As a general rule, the young are more subject to acute diseases and the old to chronic diseases. ”

“ The inflamed structures are so covered by other tissues that it is difficult to detect the local inflammation, or cause the animal to flinch by applying pressure over the region. As the disease becomes more advanced, the lameness becomes permanent. The limb is carried forward stiffly and rapidly and the animal stumbles when travelling over rough ground. In time, because of the little weight thrown on the posterior portion of the foot, the quarters may become higher, contracted and more upright and the frog smaller. If one foot is diseased, it becomes smaller than the opposite foot. ”