The goat can be successfully inoculated from the sheep, the resulting vesicles being smaller and less prominent, and the disease assuming a milder type. It is alleged to pass naturally from sheep to goat, and from goat to sheep, as well as from goat to goat but, on the whole, it is a rare disease and goats have been known to live in flocks of sheep attacked with sheeppox, without themselves contracting the disease. The malady seems to be of little account to the goat, yet in sheep countries, the interests of flockmasters would demand that it should be stamped out as vigorously as the same disease in sheep.
In Persia according to Bruce goats suffer from a form of variola, having larger vesicles, umbilicated and approximating to, if not identical with cowpox. In Algiers there is found a goatpox from which sheep are alleged to be immune (Nocard, Peuch, Bremond, Galtier) so that further observations are wanted to put the different forms of variola of the goat in their proper places. In a country where sheeppox is constantly present, there is of course the possible source of fallacy of experimenting with animals that have already had the disease, therefore it would be expedient to put all forms of goat variola under police control.
Variola appears to be rather more frequent in swine than in goats. Ficanus as quoted by Joubert saw it in 1567, contracted it was supposed from smallpox patients. It was noted by Ramazini in 1690, by Stegman in 1697, and later by Gerlach and others. In 1891 517 cases were reported in Hungary. It is said to be derived from man by the use of bed straw for litter and from sheep by occupying the same stall. It can be transmitted experimentally from pig to pig, from pigs to goats, and from goats back to pigs (Gerlach). It is also claimed to pass from the pig to man (Freidberger and Fröhner). Young pigs are especially subject to it and one attack confers immunity for the future.
Symptoms. After a febrile condition of variable length, but usually of a high intensity, red spots appear on the head, neck, chest, belly or inside the arms and thighs, at first like flea bites, but passing through the stage of papule to become vesicular on the sixth day. About the ninth or tenth day they become purulent, and in two or three days more a black, concave, circular crust has formed which is soon detached. The eruption may be local or general, discrete or confluent and the issue of the case will depend much on this character. In exceptional cases the eruption invades the mouth, eye, throat, stomach, or intestines. Croker notes the accompaniment of a fatal lobular catarrhal pneumonia.
It must be carefully distinguished from urticaria, eczema, and eruptions due to pustulating irritants.
Treatment is in the main the same as for sheep, care being taken to secure perfect cleanliness, pure air, dry clean litter, easily digested food, and protection from crowding, undue heat, cold or wet. Buttermilk and other acidulous and diuretic drinks are recommended, and careful attention to the state of the bowels throughout.
Prevention is still more important, and better than any treatment would be the most rigorous measures for its extinction along the lines laid down for sheep pox. Whether the infection has been derived from man or sheep it must be looked on as eminently dangerous to the class of animal from which it originated, and every available means used for its extinction.
Dog pox is rare, the affection occurring especially in the young. It is said to be derived in certain cases from smallpox patients (Weiskopf), and in others from sheep pox (Röll). The latter claims that the dog has also its own specific form. Dupuis and others claim experimental transmission from man to dog. At the same time eruptions connected with gastric or hepatic disorder, distemper, eczema, or aphthous fever are liable to be mistaken for it.
Symptoms. The young animals suffer from fever for a day or two, followed by heat and redness on the sides and belly, and points of deeper red, like flea bites, which gradually evolve through papules and vesicles to pustules, and terminate in crusts, that drop off leaving round bare spots. The vesicles may appear locally or generally and may be discrete or confluent. Sucking puppies, when attacked usually perish.
In treatment the same hygienic measures are demanded as for other animals, special care being required to keep the bowels and kidneys acting in a healthy manner. Perfect cleanliness must be secured, and nonstimulating easily digested food. Excessive fever would demand tepid baths, cold sponging, or acetanilid, and undue warmth, crowding and cold exposure must be alike guarded against.
In view of the alleged sources of the disease in man and sheep, the strictest seclusion of the affected dog, in disinfected surroundings will become absolutely essential and when this cannot be carried out he should be summarily destroyed.