laboratory proved very resistant. Calves and dogs were inoculated with 5 c. c. of a pure culture without results. The men who were first interested in introducing well-bred Angora, Thibet, and Cashmere goats into this country encountered some thoroughly discouraging experiences, which were very probably due in a measure to the ravages of the disease under consideration. As early as the year 1854 a prospective purchaser of Thibet goats living in the State of Georgia was warned by a naturalist of note against completing his purchase for the reason that these goats, "like the llamas of the Andes, could not be successfully acclimated in a locality under 10,000 feet above the ocean." The purchase was consummated in spite of the friendly warning of the naturalist, and the final owner (2), in recounting his experiences later, wrote: "His opinion proved to be correct, as all of the Thibet goats, pure and grades, in my flock died in a few years after I had purchased them, from a disease of their lungs combined with dysentery." A writer (1) in the Country Gentleman of February 4, 1875, also reports serious losses in a flock placed in his care on a farm at Rapidan, Va. Although he records no specific symptoms, the following quotations have great interest to all who are making a study of takosis: * * I had the sick ones removed In the early cold weather the goats began to sicken. to other quarters, and wrote for remedies to Mr. E. nothing cured them. They died, and more were taken sick. I sent for Mr. E., the owner of the goats, and when he came he said the difficulty was cold and hunger, though they had more than a "little hay and fodder" besides additional meal, much more in proportion than my sheep, which at that time were running at large without shelter and doing well. * The next morning a fine young buck which had been apparently well the night before was brought out in a dying condition. Mr. E. examined it closely and said it was a decided case of liver disease, an infectious epidemic which Angora goats were subject to in their own country, and regarded as so fatal by the Turkish shepherds that they said of it, "There is no cure but Allah.” Pegler (11) in the year 1885 described what he termed "A disease peculiar to goats." It will be seen upon reading the following excerpt from his work that his description of the scourge that appeared among the members of his flock might, in most particulars, very well be applied to a flock affected with takosis. From the page describing symptoms were borrowed the following: The first thing that is noticed is a falling off of appetite, which may at first be slight, but soon gets worse until it is a difficult matter to get the animal to eat at all. The result, of course, is that it rapidly loses flesh and falls away to a skeleton. Sometimes, however, the appetite remains good, but the emaciation goes on just the same, though the process is slower. The breathing is sometimes labored and the breath nearly always very unpleasant. A cough is very often an accompaniment of the disease, leading one to suppose, with other symptoms, that the lungs were affected, but this is seldom the case. The one prevailing feature which can never be overlooked is the general bloodlessness of the animal. This is shown by the pale color of the gums and inner surface of the lips, and also of the membranes lining the eyelids, which in health are of a bright red. Before the disease is far advanced diarrhea sets in, which begins with a slackness of the bowels. This soon gets worse, however, and, though it may be stopped for a time, it is almost sure to break out again, owing to the failure of the digestive organs from the impoverished condition of the animal. The diarrhea may last for several weeks, but as it advances it often takes the form of dysentery. The poor creature then becomes too weak to stand, and it generally dies uttering plaintive cries and There are other symptoms which occasionally manifest themselves, such as swelling beneath the jaws and weakness about the limbs, the animal always standing with its head down and back arched, looking the picture of misery and dejection. Strange to say, in nearly all the postmortems which have been made and reported to me, there has been no organic disease. Internal parasites are sometimes discovered, but not in sufficient quantities to greatly affect the animal's health, much less cause its death, which in all cases is due to exhaustion. moans. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE. A few years ago the flocks of Angora goats in this country were comparatively unimportant in number, and they were nearly all of them kept in southern latitudes, but during recent years the raising of these animals has received a remarkable impetus. New uses have been discovered for the fleece, they have been widely exploited as brush eradicators, and their flesh has been more readily accepted as a food product, until at present they have reached an established, settled value in many of the larger live-stock markets. As a result of the widespread interest thus awakened in them, many stock raisers have made purchases of foundation stock with the intention of establishing therewith a profitable flock. Others have made larger purchases at the start, being unwilling to wait for the slow natural increase in numbers of their animals. By means of numerous transactions the animals have been placed in widely distributed northern localities to which they were formerly strangers, but the serious losses caused to these investors by outbreaks of takosis served as a check to many prospective purchasers, and the Angora goat industry was, in consequence, subjected to a discouraging setback, and has not expanded to the proportions which it would otherwise have reached. Now that the cause of the trouble has been determined, one may be warranted in claiming that the disastrous effects of all outbreaks up to the present time may in the future be avoided in large measure. The owner of the flock of goats will now see the importance of deciding upon the nature of the ailment affecting them just as soon as any general disease is noticed; and when takosis has appeared and been identified, if he will at once apply the precautionary measures and the course of treatment to be recommended later in this work, he should avoid many of the discouraging experiences of his predecessors. As has already been stated in this article, the most serious losses that have come to our notice have occurred among goats that were removed from southern localities to new regions far to northward, and that had not become fully acclimated in their new surroundings. In many instances the trouble has appeared very soon after the arrival of the animals at their destination, even before they have recovered fully from the serious strain incident to the long journey by rail. There is always a value to be derived from the confirmatory statements of many witnesses. Various observers are sure to offer a variety of observations upon any subject in which they may have a common interest, and for the purpose of presenting to the reader as generalized a knowledge as possible of the effects of takosis upon a flock of goats, and also for showing how diversified is the territory in which the ravages of the disease are being felt, it has been deemed advisible to present the following extracts received by this Bureau with reference to the disease. From Knapp, Wis., the following was received: I have in my charge about five hundred goats, and they have been dying from what I called stomach worms; but of late I have come to the conclusion that something else is the matter with them. They lose their appetite, grow thin in flesh, cough and get weak, and then lie down and die. Some linger along two or three months. There is from one to five in the flock that show the symptoms all the time, and from one to two die per week. They first cough, then lag behind the flock at night when coming to the barn. Then there is lack of appetite, they grow poor and weak and look gaunt all the time as though they have been starved A letter of inquiry from Pittsburg, Pa., asks: Would some of you let me know what the proper feed is for goats through the winter when they have no pasture? I bought a few Angora goats and so did a few of my neighbors, and they are dying. The flock that we obtained them from was very poor; in fact, I never saw anything poorer to live than the goats were when we received them. I feed mine on corn and oat chop, half and half, and corn fodder, and cut some apple brush, but for all I would do my goats died with scours. A writer from Langhorne, Pa., sends the following record of his observations: To look at our goats in the yard you would say they looked fine, and you could hardly pick out one that you might think was not quite up to the average, yet to-morrow morning you would find four or five down on their sides or otherwise. If picked up they might move off slowly and eat a little, but the next morning they would be down again. The animals will not get up or stay up, but will linger in this manner for some days, smelling badly and bleating occasionally or groaning, with head bent around on side or under them, and finally die. Sometimes, as a result of lying so long, they get apparently choleraic discharges from the bowels, which is offensive, but this does not show at first, and is not the primal cause. Tioga County, Pa., has for several years had a flock of Angora goats, representing among its members some excellent specimens of the breed. The owner of this flock, in describing the course of takosis, writes: None of the diseased goats recovered. It took a long time for many of them to die. They tried very hard to live, and some of them succeeded in living for weeks, only getting weaker and weaker and finally just fading away. Some had diarrhea but many did not. In making a report of postmortem findings, a correspondent from Iowa mentions one of the characteristic symptoms of takosis as follows: The amount of bile is from one-fourth to three-fourths of a pint in each goat. A healthy goat only has, as I find, about a tablespoonful. This goat has been ailing for two weeks, but only refused to eat for two days. I have lost one-third of my flock and have not been able to save even one goat that has become sick. A breeder in western Illinois states that he has lost one hundred out of a flock of four hundred, and that two of his neighbors have suffered proportionate losses. These goats were all well sheltered. siders the disease some sort of cholera, reasoning from the fact that the animals were all affected with diarrhea. The following extracts, from a letter received just as this paper was ready for the press, from the owner of a large flock of Angora goats in Michigan, confirm several of the statements made in the introduction of this article: We personally suffered a loss last winter in animals that we had brought from Texas in November, 1901, from this disease, and thus learned of the trouble. * * * We gathered together a herd of all grades of goats for the purpose of studying them and finally arrived at the conclusion that, so far as the Angora goat is concerned, the animal most susceptible to the disease, was the result of careless breeding, or to be more exact, too much inbreeding, thus lowering its vitality and leaving it open to the attack. * * * The care, feed, and shelter of the various grades of animals we have had was all alike, and it resulted, as stated, in the survival of the carefully bred, free from inbreeding Angora goat. Other reports of like nature have been received from goat owners in Oregon, Missouri, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland, all describing the affection as an incurable weakening and wasting away, usually accompanied by uncontrollable diarrhea and occasionally cough. The death rate has been very high in the flocks from which reports have been obtained and ranges from 30 to 85 per cent. Another feature of takosis, which is of great economic importance to the breeder of goats, is experienced in the unavoidable tendency to abortion which is manifested by all pregnant females that are affected with the disease. Females of the sheep and goat families will never reproduce in a prolific manner if in a wasted, emaciated condition during the breeding season. Many of them will fail to come in heat, and others, although passing through the period of estrum normally, will fail to conceive. Takosis is essentially a wasting disease, and one of the marked results of its attack upon a flock of breeding goats is seen in the shrunken kid crop of the following season. It is rare indeed for a pregnant doe to complete her term of gestation if attacked during this period by takosis. Abortion follows almost invariably. As might naturally be expected, the accident of abortion under these circumstances always ends fatally, as the animal is unable, in her already weakened condition, to withstand the shock incident to delivery. Many times the fetus dies in utero, and thus becoming a foreign body to the maternal organism, it but hastens the eventual collapse of the doe. In holding autopsies on the bodies of affected pregnant does, it has been occasionally noted that the death of the fetus preceded that of the mother by a few days, and the fetal decomposition present has indicated that it played a prominent part in causing the death of the adult. One flock has been brought to our notice which contained about 1,600 does at the commencement of the breeding season in the fall of 1901. They were seriously affected with takosis at this time, and in consequence there were but seventeen living kids produced in the following spring. Another instance is reported where the total increase of a flock of over 1,000 does for the year was limited to eleven living kids. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS. PARASITISM. The condition which will most frequently be mistaken for takosis in goats is parasitism. In common with sheep, goats serve as hosts for a formidable array of animal parasites, and the loss directly or indirectly due to parasitic invasions must annually serve as a serious tax upon the goat raisers of the country. The effects of internal parasites upon the goats are very similar in many of their outward manifestations to the symptoms of takosis. There is a persistent unthriftiness, although the appetite of the animal remains good. The fleece does not retain its proper luster. There may be considerable snuffling of the nose, accompanied by frequent coughing. The animal may become affected with diarrhea, more or less severe, and its accompanying weakness. The eyes lose their brilliance and gradually assume a dull sunken appearance. The formation of an edematous tumor beneath the jaws is frequently noticed during the later stages of a serious invasion. These, in a general way, are the symptoms resulting from an attack by animal parasites, but it must be remembered that there are species of worms that find their natural habitat in some particular organ, and that, in consequence, it is impossible to give an accurate enumeration of the symptoms that may be manifested in any given case under the general heading of parasitism. The symptoms produced by the local disturbance of the affected part will predominate, while others, frequently caused by parasitic invasion, will be entirely lacking. Careful postmortem examination will quickly disclose the presence of parasites. A differential diagnosis previous to death of the animal may, however, be made by giving due consideration to the various symptoms manifested by these |