38 J)E1 AKTMENT OF AGRICULTUKE. 



In England practitioners have resorted to various methods of treatment. The practice 

 of blood-letting has long been abandoned, but the advocates of setons, and more particu 

 larly of active blistering agents, such as croton oil, cantharides, and tartar emetic ointmeut, 

 still exist. Small doses of calomel and tartar emetic, stimulating draughts containing creo 

 sote, turpentine, sulphuric ether, carbonate of ammonia, and alcohol, have been more gener 

 ally employed. Mineral acids, the administration daily of dilute sulphuric acid especially, 

 and an early resort to mineral and vegetable tonics, have found their advocates. Of late 

 years the tincture of aconite has been in favor as a febrifuge, and largely used, and 

 some have tried Indian hemp and other narcotics. Everything has been tried, without 

 much reasoning or careful record of results. The important salient feature in the history 

 of pleuropneumonia in England is that all the therapeutic skill of the veterinarian has 

 not prevented greater and more general losses than have ever been witnessed in other 

 countries, if we may except Holland. 



For some years I have noticed that the earlier lesions of the lung disease partake, in 

 their character and results, more of the features of hemorrhage a prostrating discharge 

 from the blood-vessels of a sero-albuminous product than of inflammation. The con 

 gestion and inflammation are truly secondary, and once developed it is apparently impos 

 sible to control them, though their extent varies greatly. In some animals but a portion 

 of one lung is involved, in others one entire organ is affected, and in others, which cases 

 are almost without exception fatal, both lungs become hepatized, and the animal dies 

 sooner or later of apnoea or suffocation. 



Xotwifehstanding the well-founded objection of some distinguished veterinarians to the 

 practice of administering mineral astringents as preservatives an objection to wi,ich 

 Professor Nicklas gave utterance at the first international veterinary congress held in 

 Hamburg in 1863 it is certain that they far surpass all other means in the treatment of 

 the early stages of the lung plague. Professor Nicklas said, with much truth, that where 

 pleuropneumonia appeared there were often persons who prescribed the sulphate of iron 

 to check the progress of the disease. The isolation of such cattle was not attended to, 

 and the malady continued; whereas if the sick had been isolated, or slaughtered, and the 

 remaining animals of a herd inoculated, there would have been an end to the outbreak. 



On the other hand, if attention is paid to the segregation of the sick, and those indubi 

 tably free from the disease are inoculated, there is still a number, and often not a small 

 number, sure to die within a month or six weeks, simply because inoculated too late. These 

 animals, if of great value, and proper facilities are afforded for treatment without incurring 

 the risk of extension of the malady, may often be treated with success. 



Thermometer in hand, a good observer and auscultator can detect the invasion of 

 this disease some days and even as long as ten days or a fortnight before marked symp 

 toms appear. At that stage, the peculiar yellow deposit which first slowly invades the 

 interlobular tissue of the lungs is penetrating into the organ, and its extension may, as I 

 have noticed frequently, be checked by active internal astringents. The best of these are 

 the sesquichloride and the sulphate of iron. But our choice extends further, since vege 

 table infusions or decoctions containing tannin, besides the astringent preparations of lead, 

 may likewise retard and arrest the exudation. 



I have on several occasions been called to prescribe for herds in which I have readily 

 traced cases of pleuropneumonia in advanced stages of the disease. I have removed the 



