heartwater, noun

Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Translation of Afrikaans hartwater, named for the characteristic accumulation of fluid in the pericardium.
1. Pathology. A febrile disease of cattle, sheep, and goats (and also of antelope), caused by the virus Rickettsia ruminantium, transmitted usually by the bont tick Amblyomma hebraeum; dronkgalsiekte, see galsiekte sense 1 b. Also attributive.
1882 S. Heckford Lady Trader in Tvl 134Investigation had proved that an ox had died of lung-sickness in the bush-veldt, but the fact had been hushed up by the Nel family, who swore that it died of what they call here ‘heart-water’, in order to save themselves trouble.
1896 R. Wallace Farming Indust. of Cape Col. 380Heart-water in sheep is another obscure disease of a specific nature, which seems to be unknown in other sheep countries.
1905 D. Hutcheon in Flint & Gilchrist Science in S. Afr. 346The characteristic lesion is an effusion of a clear buff-coloured sero-albuminous fluid into the thoracic cavity and pericardial sac, which coagulates into a firm jelly on exposure to the atmosphere. Hence its popular name, ‘Heartwater’.
1914 Farmer’s Annual 233Heartwater is communicated by the ‘bont-tick’ (Amblyomma hebraeum), when the parasite has previously fed on another animal suffering from the disease.
1937 S. Cloete Turning Wheels 58When they were cut open their heart cavities were filled with a straw-coloured liquid. Having no name for it, the Boers called this new sickness heart-water.
a1951 H.C. Bosman in L. Abrahams Unto Dust (1963) 139I’ve never seen so much heart-water in Afrikaner herds. They should dip their cattle every seven days.
1972 Star 22 June 21Springbok get heart-water in the north west Transvaal.
1981 Meat Board Focus May 33The discovery of remedies for the treatment of heart-water, the discovery that sweating-sickness was caused by the variegated tick..are but a few of the momentous breakthroughs resulting from their research.
1991 Personality 5 Aug. 30One shipment of springbok all died of heartwater within three months.
1994 [see tollie].
2. combinations
heartwater tick, bont tick;
heartwater veld [Afrikaans (earlier Dutch) veld open, undeveloped countryside], grazing infested with the bont tick, and from which an immunity to heartwater may be acquired.
1937 Handbk for Farmers (Dept of Agric. & Forestry) 516The bont, or heartwater tick, is very tough and not easily killed by dipping.
a1951 H.C. Bosman in L. Abrahams Unto Dust (1963) 137Even though he drives his cattle straight out on to the veld with the first frost, and he keeps to regular seven-day dipping, he just can’t get rid of the heart-water ticks.
1974 B. Smit in Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. X. 500Bont tick, This variegated tick is well known as the notorious heart-water tick.
1972 Farmer’s Weekly 21 Apr. 60The animals are used to virulent heartwater, redwater and gallsickness veld.
1977 Winterberg Nuus/News 21 Sept. 11The cattle being offered are of excellent quality and are in good condition, they have been reared on Heartwater and Gallsickness veld.
1993 [see gallsickness veld gallsickness sense 3].
A febrile disease of cattle, sheep, and goats (and also of antelope), caused by the virus Rickettsia ruminantium, transmitted usually by the bont tick Amblyomma hebraeum; dronkgalsiekte, see galsiekte sense 1 b. Also attributive.
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Afrikaans
health committee, noun phrasen. phr.heemraad, nounn.
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