506 PNEUMONIA. 



Treatment. — As an inflammatory action, developed in con- 

 nection with organs large in snperticial extent and essential to 

 life, pneumonia, like some other morbid conditions, has in its 

 treatment given room for the greatest divergence of opinion, 

 and is still likely to do so. 



As there are many roads to Rome, so both in medicine and 

 surgery are there many, and, it may be, apparently difi'ercnt 

 modes of treatment, which nevertheless all tend to the same 

 end, the restoration of normal structure and functional 

 activity. In no cases more distinctly, probably, than in pneu- 

 monia will it be found that he is the best practitioner Avho can 

 most readily and fully grasp the difTerences so regularly met 

 with in the constitutional disposition of the different animals 

 we meet with — the characters and types which diseased action 

 is liable to assume, as well as the effect of surroundmg in- 

 fluences upon both animals and disease. There is little doubt 

 that to be treated successfully, pneumonia must be treated 

 individually, and not generically ; we must consider the case 

 of each animal separately — {a) as to its individual constitution ; 

 (6) the influences to which it is subjected; (c) the form of 

 development or type of the diseased action by which it is 

 assailed. It will not serve our purpose in the adoption of 

 remedial measures to forget the individual patient in a recol- 

 lection of any particular group or collection of so-called typical 

 cases ; such is very useful in enabling us to form opinions from 

 which we may draw certain conclusions, but each case of 

 disease must form for itself matter for our consideration, and 

 must be managed in accordance with its own individual pecu- 

 liarities, both intrinsic and extrinsic. 



In this way, and following such considerations, we rind that 

 bleeding — under certain conditions — so much decried in our 

 day, will be productive of good, while in animals specially con- 

 stituted and circumstanced it will be productive of only 

 serious results ; that some are most benefited by salines with 

 mild diuretics ; while a third class seem to benefit by moderate 

 stimulation, and a final group accord best with being left 

 entirely to the recuperative powers of the system. 



At one time not so long antecedent to our own, the remedy 

 universally adopted in the treatment of pneumonia in all 

 animals was blood-letting. Our most prominent teachers and 



