576 SPORADIC DISEASES. 



Some operators substitute a small hammer for the fingers, the 

 head being made of wood, ivory, or metal, with its percussing 

 surface covered by a softish and somewhat elastic substance, as 

 felt, caoutchouc or gutta-percha. The more satisfactory method, 

 and the best and simplest, is immediate percussion by the tips 

 of the fingers or knuckles ; the part percussed to be unclothed, 

 and struck perpendicularly to its surface, otherwise the character 

 of the sound will sometimes be confusing. 



3. Palpation. — Touch is useful in the diagnosis not only of 

 chest diseases but of many other ailments. By this method we 

 detect tenderness, heat, coldness, fluctuations, tumours, and a 

 variety of conditions indicative of disease. 



If an animal be affected with pleurisy, firm pressure in the 

 intercostal spaces will cause wincing, grunting, or even groaning. 



4. Mensuration is recommended by the French veterinarians. 

 It has, however, found little or no favour in this country, as it is 

 considered that an amount of disease sufficient to alter the relative 

 size of the sides of the chest is otherwise determined than by mea- 

 surement. In the cat, dog, and cow, the intercostal spaces are 

 expanded and dilated in hydrothorax of one side, if of long 

 standing ; and in some cases of chronic pneumonia in cattle I 

 have confirmed the observations of Delafond, that one side of 

 the chest is sometimes palpably larger than the opposite side. 



Mensuration as applied to the chest, says Mr. Gamgee, 

 " consists in the application of a cord or tape to the similar parts 

 of the two sides of the chest, in order to ascertain whether any 

 difference exists in their relative prominence. For the larger 

 animals a tape of three or four feet long, ana for the smaller, 

 one of a foot and a half to two feet, may be employed. One 

 end is placed immediately behind the withers, and the line 

 carried downward to the middle of the sternum, which part 

 is marked by a knot ; a second measurement is made from 

 the withers to the eighth rib, or the commencement of the 

 cartilages of the false ribs, and similarly marked ; a third 

 measurement is made from the lower end of the third rib 

 to the commencement of the cartilages of the false ribs ; 

 lastly, the tape may be carried from the posterior border of 

 the shoulder along the middle region of the chest as far as the 

 last rib. The same measurement may then be made on the 

 opposite side of the thorax, care being taken that they be always 

 made at the same stage of the respiratory act, as otherwise false 



