200 CLINICAL VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



encouraged to take food and drink at short intervals, — every two hours, 

 or every hour during the day and night. If everything is refused, gruel, 

 milk, or beef tea can be administered by the rectum. Intelligent 

 nursing is of the greatest value. It is also very important to keep 

 careful watch on healthy animals so as to detect the onset of disease at 

 the earliest possible moment. 



Volatile antiseptics, like oil of turpentine and carbolic acid solution, 

 should be sprayed or scattered about the floor and over the walls of the 

 stable. 



During the last few years treatment has been enriched by two 

 special methods of medication, hydrotherapy and serotherapy. 



Hydrotherapy, already repeatedly tested during the present century, 

 consists essentially in the use of the cold pack, that is the application 

 to the chest of compresses moistened with cold water. To produce 

 the most intense effects VVoronzow used ice. In 1890 he published the 

 results obtained in 250 cases of pneumonia. Specially arranged packs 

 containing powdered ice were applied to the thorax, and renewed 

 several times per day during the acute stage of the disease, the patients 

 receiving in addition daily doses of I5 to 3 ounces of sulphate of soda. 

 Of 250 animals thus treated only 10 died, the mortality, therefore, 

 being 4 per cent. — a proportion certainly below the average mortality of 

 contagious pneumonia treated by ordinary methods.* 



The seropathic treatment consists in injecting under the skin during 

 the febrile and hepatisation periods serum obtained from animals which 

 have recovered from pneumonia. The blood is collected aseptically in 

 sterilised vessels by the usual method. Next day, or even two days 

 later, the serum is distributed in sterilised bottles, containing I2i to 25 

 fluid drachms. In use it is injected with aseptic precautions into the 

 subcutaneous connective tissue of the neck. Each day five to ten 

 injections of 5 fluid drachms each are made alternately on either 

 surface of the neck, or into the chest region over the extensor muscles 

 of the forearm. The liq-uid is rapidly absorbed without producing 

 abscesses or induration. 



Though Hell, Wittich, and some other veterinary surgeons have 

 only obtained negative or doubtful results with this serum. Topper, 

 Zschokke, Jansen, and Jacquot credit it with immunising and curative 

 properties. Granting that a previous attack of pneumonia really 

 confers immunity (full or modified), the blood should contain antitoxic 

 substances during convalescence. But to obtain any benefit from the 



* During an outbreak of contagious pneumonia which attacked the horses of the Bon- 

 Marche at Paris M. Brun obtained very good results by applying powdered ice to the thorax 

 by means of india-rubber bags. 



