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6. Definition.—A specific, parasitical, non-inflammatory, enzootic blood disease,
characterised by fever, with jaundice, petechiae of mucous membranes, especially of
the eye and vagina, dropsy, albumen sometimes in the urine, great prostration of
strength, rapid wasting, and with a specific parasite in the blood during life ; but no
characteristic structural organic lesions are found after death. It may be transmitted
by the subcutaneous injection of blood, and by drinking fresh blood containing the
parasites alive, but it is not contagious or infectious in the ordinary way. The average
duration of the disease is probably not less than two months, but reliable statistics
are wanting upon that point.
7. Symptoms.—The symptoms of surra may be divided into those common to
other maladies, and those which are more characteristic of itself. The invasion of
this disease, when acquired in the ordinary way, is that common to all low fevers.
Thirst is more or less abnormal, appetite capricious, coat staring, action sluggish,
occasionally stumbling before or dragging the hind legs on the ground. The sowar
notices his horse to be out of sorts, but as the animal is not very ill he docs not report
him sick: he gives him some spices and butter, and continues to ride him, until at
last the animal can carry his rider no longer safely. He then takes him to the sick
lines for the examination of the salutri, who finds the fever more or less high at this
stage, depending upon the amount of work the animal has been doing the previous
few days. The pulse is elevated, mouth hot, sometimes the breath smells badly,
slight catarrhal symptoms, the eyes weeping, and often there is a discharge from the nose
of mucous more or less tinged yellow. In a small proportion of cases the submaxillary
gland may be enlarged and tender. In a large proportion of cases the legs are
swollen, the salutri presses the swelling with his fingers and finds it pits; sooner or
later a similar swelling is found between the forelegs of mares or at the sheath of
horses, and the animal is dropsical; he refuses food, there is great thirst, and the
urine is high colored. The swelling of the legs, &c., with the feverish symptoms,
arouse the suspicion of the salutri, who then everts the eyelids, and if he finds the
conjunctival membrane of a decidedly yellow color, often of a dirty yellow, with
claret-colored spots on the eyelids, or, as is most common, on the membrana nictitans
at the inner corner of the eye, which the salutri projects by the pressure of his finger
for examination, then he has no hesitation in declaring that the animal suffers from
" surra." In the case of a mare he opens the labia, and if he finds the mucous
membrane of the vagina decidedly yellow with the petechias even more marked
than in the eye, his diagnosis is confirmed. If the sowar be now questioned as to
how long the horse has been ailing, he can hardly ever tell; his answer will be
vague and indefinite, so that it is not possible to fix the duration of the disease
exactly in any of these cases; the reckoning is afterwards made from the date of
admission on the sick report. The duration of the disease before that, has depended,
as a rule, upon the amount of work the horse has had, and upon the previous
condition and constitution of the animal; weak animals succumb sooner. In a
few days after admission on the sick list, owing to rest, the activity of the fever
subsides, pulse lowers, temperature becomes normal so far as the hand can recognise,
the appetite returns though it remains more or less capricious with regard to grain,
the grass is usually all taken, but thirst continues excessive. The color of the urine
as a rule becomes normal, and the dung also. I did not find the dung in any case
abnormal; but I was told by 'the salutri, who laid great emphasis upon it, that the
dung balls are sometimes coated with mucous, having reddish patches ; he showed me
one of these : it was what we often find in health. I mention this here for the benefit
of the frontier officers who may read this report that they may not be misled. The
progress of the disease is variable. If is often marked by an increase of the dropsical
swellings, which, however, sometimes subside, and again return worse than before.
l have seen some cases in the last stage without any swelling, though it had been present.
The yellowness of the mucous membrane, or jaundice, and the petechias remain through-
out, though they are variable in intensity. In a few cases the swelling of the sub-
maxillary gland which I mentioned will develop into an abscess, with a thick gluey
mucous discharge from the nose. I found no other gland in the body enlarged before or
after death, and I found no sign of ulceration of the nose, or tubercle in the lungs, &c.
In some advanced cases the urine is passed often, and appears to be much more than
normal in quantity; but I was not able to measure it, The most constant and