LARYNGITIS, OR SORE THROAT. 25 



Chronic laryngitis is a disease which comes ofteuer 

 under notice than the acute disease. I beheve most of 

 the troublesome, enduring, hacking coughs we are constantly 

 consulted about to be attributable to some over-irritable or 

 morbid condition of the larynx : at least, I think I have 

 a right to assign such to be their seat when I find com- 

 pression of the larynx instantly occasioning the cough, and 

 causing that manifestation of annoyance — shaking of the head, 

 running back, &c. — on the part of the animal, which clearly 

 evinces morbid or abnormal irritability in the part. Another 

 demonstration of the correctness of this opinion is the relief 

 mostly obtained from the application of a blister upon the 

 throat. 



The causes of laryngitis may be sought for among those 

 of catarrh and bronchitis. 



The effects of this inflammation are various, tending in 

 violent cases, as I have already observed, to suffocation ; in 

 others, to that state of parts which is known to produce thick 

 wind or roaring. Suffocation is liable to happen under con- 

 vulsive efiPorts to breathe, either during the tumid infiltrated 

 condition of the mucous membrane, or while the passages are 

 loaded with secretion : it is under these circumstances that 

 we are warranted in having recourse to the operation of 

 broncliotomy. 



Spasms of the larynx are among the distressing symp- 

 toms to which laryngitis not unfrequently gives rise. Mr. 

 Haycock,^ views this symptom as of itself the disease ; but 

 this is not the case. It may arise from either inflammation 

 or irritation, going on within, or directly acting on the larynx; 

 or from a distant source of irritation acting upon the organ 

 from an impression conveyed in a reflex manner by one or 

 more of the numerous nerves which terminate within the 

 tissues of the laryngeal apparatus. Mr. Haycock's description 

 of it is a very good one : '^ Sometimes,^' he says,^ *^ it mani- 

 fests itself in a moment, as it were, with a most terrible se- 

 verity — the animal begins to gasp for breath — the eyeballs 

 protrude and present a wild haggard appearance — the nostrils 



' ' Elements of Vet. Homoeopathy,' &c. By Mr. Haycock, V.S. ' n,jj^ 



