CHAPTER LIII. 



SPOEADIC DISEASE S— continued. 



LOCAL BISWASES— contmued. 



(I.) DISEASES OF THE EESPIEATOEY ORGANS— continued. 



PLEUEISY— PLEUEITIS. 



Inflammation, partial or general, of the serous membrane that 

 lines the cavity and covers the viscera of the thorax, attended 

 with effusion of serum, exudation of lymph, or, rarely, the 

 formation of pus. 



Pleuritis, or a combination of it with pneumonia, is the most 

 common form of chest inflammation met with during the pre- 

 valence of the easterly winds of spring and early summer, and 

 has been fully described at page 346. 



In the lower animals, exposure to cold is the most common 

 cause of pleurisy. It has followed clipping when an animal 

 has been exposed to cold, and Duvieusart states that he has 

 seen three hundred cases of pleurisy in a flock of sheep shorn in 

 February, thirty of which died. — (Gamgee's Domestic Animals.) 

 It will sound strange to veterinary surgeons to be told that cold 

 is now believed to have no effect in causing pleurisy in the 

 human being : such, however, is the belief. 



Pleuritis in the horse often partak-es of a rheumatic character ; 

 the inflammat/ion being induced by the same cause — cold — 

 and assuming a similar metastatic type and character, chang- 

 ing its seat from the pleura, sometimes to the pericardium, 

 endocardium, or to the ligamentous or tendinous structures 

 of the extremities. In more than one instance navicular 

 disease has succeeded an attack of pleurisy, and I have one 

 specimen in my possession showing ossification of the heart 



