GANGRENOUS INFECTION OF THE CORONET. HORSE. POTCHETCHOUI.
Seen on rich, damp lands. Symptoms: lameness, small areas of congestion, erection of hairs, vesiculation, pustulation, gangrene as deep as tendons, depilation, desquamation, fistulæ, slough of hoof, early fever, impaired appetite, recovery in 14 to 21 days in most cases. Staphylococcus and streptococcus. Prevention: segregation, different attendants, avoidance of infecting land while damp, smear limbs with antiseptics. Treatment: antiseptic bandages.
Under this name Sotsevich describes an infectious disease of the horse, which prevails in the Don province, and especially on rich, low, damp lands. Before the appearance of any local lesion, the horse goes very lame on one limb. Afterward there appears, usually on the coronet or pastern, an area on which the hairs stand erect, with elevation of the epidermis and the formation of vesicles as large as barley corns, filled with a yellowish white liquid and later with pus. Gangrene follows, extending from the skin to the subcutaneous connective tissue, aponeurosis and tendons, and forming large sores, one to two inches in diameter and discharging an abundant yellow, fœtid pus. The adjacent skin takes on a yellow tint and sheds its hair and epidermis. The disease may extend into the interphalangean joints or under the hoof, leading to offensive fistulæ or evulsion of the hoof. If it extends to the higher parts of the limb it becomes less destructive.
At the onset there is some fever (101° F.), dulness and inappetence, but these gradually subside, and in favorable cases complete recovery has taken place in two or three weeks.
Bacteriological investigation has detected in the contents of the vesicles, staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, and streptococcus pyogenes.
Prevention is largely secured by a rigid separation of the diseased from the healthy. Other obvious precautions would be to exclude those dressing the sores from handling other horses until after thorough disinfection of the hands, and to keep the sound animals, during wet seasons, from the damp infecting soils, or when they must work on these, to smear the lower parts of the limbs with antiseptic ointments (tar, carbolic, iodine, mercuric, etc., etc.)
Treatment with sublimate bandages proves very satisfactory, yet any comparatively non-irritating antiseptic lotion may be used.