140 DISEASES OF THE LUNGS. 



water; on which account we ought to lose no time in seek- 

 ing confirmation on so important a point. 



Symptoms, as follow : — Short, quick, laboured respiration; 

 and yet not so strikingly manifest until there supervene the 

 latter stages, at a- time when the chest comes to be nearly 

 full of water ; when the distressed animal is seen to exert to 

 the utmost every inspiratory power he possesses. Should 

 the patient lie down, which is seldom the case, he cannot 

 long remain lying; and the side upon which he lies is the 

 one that contains the — or the most — water. D'Arboval 

 says, the intercostal spaces are enlarged. The pulse, which 

 is small and quick, as the disease advances becomes quicker 

 and less perceptible, until, at length, it cannot be felt at all 

 at the jaw. The horse, led out, steps with his fore-legs 

 wide apart, and stiffened, and is often unsteady, reeling in 

 his gait. The breast, belly, and sheath show dropsical 

 swellings, which, by degrees, fall into the legs. 



Auscultation and percussion. — Unless gas or air be 

 present with the water in the chest, which can be but rarely 

 the case, it is now ascertained, that — so far from any undu- 

 lation or fluctuation or bubbling sound being perceptible, 

 as so many have fancied they have heard — hydrothorax is 

 denoted by an absence of all sound. There is no murmur, 

 no resonance on percussion ; in fact there can be none in 

 such regions as are filled by water alone. The readiest 

 method of obtaining a knowledge of the actual presence of 

 water, is, to direct some person to tap with his hand one 

 side of the thorax, while the practitioner closely applies his 

 ear to the other side, directly opposite. 



Water in one or both cavities of the chest. — Touch- 

 ing this part of our subject, some new light appears to have 

 been shed upon us by some French veterinarians. E-igot in 

 1827, Delafond in 1830, and Bouley in 1836, have invited 

 our attention to the new fact of the mediastinum of the 

 horse being so constructed as to admit of a communication 

 between the two pleural sacs. They say. 



The mediastinum of the horse possesses neither the aspect 

 nor the texture of the pleura : it is thin, diaphanous, deli- 



