Medical Officers of the Army of India.
69
the characteristic febrile relapses can be ascertained, and by the microscope the
pathognomonic aspect of the blood (see below); a period of 10 days' watching
may, however, be needful for certainty. In "anthrax" the temperature is per
- s i s t e n t l y h i g h a n d t h e b l o o d c o n t a i n s b a c i l l i , a n d i n 9 c a s e s o u t o f 1 0t
h i s d i s e a s e
is of acute character: whereas in "surra" the malady is more chronic, the
pyrexia intermittent, and the blood then charged with "spirilloids" (Steel).
Prognosis is unfavourable in the highest degree: and treatment, both general and
special, having hitherto proved inefficacious, attention needs be directed to
prophylactic and preventive measures.
As to etiology, it is stated that though new to science, "surra" has long
been recognised in its haunts, where as a rule enzootic it does sometimes as
- s u m e a n e p i z o o t i c c h a r a c t e r ( E v a n s ) . A d e q u a t e l y s u s t a i n e d e n q u i r y m a d e o n
the spot, concerning the predisposing and determining causes of the disease
is still a desideratum; only occasional and non-exclusive conditions chiefly of mal
- n u t r i t i o n o r m a l - s a n i t a t i o n b e i n g a s y e t e l i c i t e d , t h e r e r e m a i n s t o n o t e s u c h m o r e
direct agencies as in the popular opinion produce this disease, e.g. , the bite of
a large brown fly the size of a small bee (classification unknown), the feeding
on certain kinds of grass, and the drinking of fouled, stagnant, marshy water as
mentioned by Dr. Evans, who himself found flukes in the liver of two "surra'
cases examined post mortem. The Indian veterinary observers seem unani
-mously disposed to regard the hæmatozoon as the immediate cause of the dis
-ease; the arguments put forth in support of such view being those held in an-
alogous instances, e.g. , the spirillum fever, and also like, but more elaborately con
-clusive, in the anthrax infection; it is asserted that this organism is never found
in healthy equines (a ), that it is invariably present in the diseased ( b ), and that
its occurrence is peculiar to the diseased (c) : further, there is, in the mule at least,
the closest connection in time between its usual visible advent and the onset of
febrile symptoms, with the additional feature of disappearance of the blood-
organism just before the acme and decline of specific pyrexia (Steel); and again
during the apyretic interval ensuing, it is said that immature growing forms of
the parasite are with little difficulty detectable (Mr. Gunn, A.V.D.); lastly, the
absence of a strict relationship between the apparent number of organisms and
the intensity of clinical symptoms would be no valid argument against a real
connection here, because such symptoms are really complex phenomena referable
to a conjunction of influences and conditions. Judging from all the data, there
is, I may add, ample evidence to warrant the assumption that the natural equine
disease scrutinised by Dr. Evans and Messrs. Steel and Gunn was one and the
same.
The remarkable fact that "surra" is communicable by inoculation and even
by imbibition of the tainted blood was determined promptly by its sagacious dis
-coverer, and has been fully confirmed by the next observer, whose more elabo-