Investigations into the Nature, Causation, and Prevention of Texas or Southern Cattle Fever Page: 35
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TIHE NATURE OF TEXAS CATTLE FEVER.
pastured and the frequent blood examinations as well as the taking of
the temperature were carried out with the least possible disturbance to
the animals. Again the animals used by us weighed between 500 and
800 pounds. They were not more than average animals in an average
condition of flesh. It may be that the large fat animals in a ple-
thoric condition would develop the peculiar condition of the muscular
system, the jaundice and the more marked hyperemia (and sloughing ?)
of the fourth stomach and intestines observed in 1868. The essential
lesions, however, are precisely the same. The disease first studied by
Gamgee and the Metropolitan Board of Health in 1868 is the same as
that now occupying our attention. The changes going on in the blood,
the liver, spleen, and kidneys are so striking and peculiar that they
could not very well belong to two different maladies.
CHANGES IN THE CORPUSCULAR ELEMENTS OF THE BLOOD.
The condition of the blood, so far as determinable by the naked eye,
has already been referred to. It grows very thin and watery as the
disease progresses. This fact was emphasized by the earliest students
of this disease, the investigators of the Metropolitan Board in 1868.
Its prime significance seems to have escaped them and subsequent
ones. In the preliminary pathological examination of four cases in
1888 (Nos. 3 to 6 inclusive) the destruction of red corpuscles explained
best of all the conditions observed. Hence the importance of concen-
trating the attention on the blood and its cellular elements was at once
recognized. In 1889 arrangements were made by which cases of the
disease could be studied during life at the experiment station, and
within easy reach of the laboratory, in the District of Columbia. In
order to measure in some accurate manner the changes going on in the
blood, the red corpuscles were counted as soon as living cases were ac-
cessible. The result proved surprising in the extreme. It was found
that there is a destruction of red corpuscles going on from day to day
quite enormous in acute cases. Going parallel with this diminution in
the number of corpuscles a change in their size and appearance became
manifest which demanded a careful study in order that a distinction
between the stages of the intraglobular parasite and the altered cor-
puscles which might be confounded with them could be made. As the
investigations proceeded an accurate knowledge of these changes
proved very valuable as a means of diagnosis. In a number of cases
the recent existence of Texas fever could be at once determined by
their presence, even though the Texas fever parasite was no longer to
be detected in the blood. These changes must now be considered as
next in importance to the parasite itself in the diagnosis of Texas fever
in all its forms. The present chapter is therefore a consideration of
the changes, both quantitative and qualitative, affecting the red cor-
puscles without reference to the micro-parasite accompanying them.
This will be described in another chapter.35
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Smith, Theobold & Kilborne, Fred Lucius. Investigations into the Nature, Causation, and Prevention of Texas or Southern Cattle Fever, book, 1893; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143538/m1/35/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.