68 THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 



ry, I have seen the one produced in seventeen hours, and know, 

 from extensive observation, that the other, viz., blackness and en- 

 gorgement of them with blood, or something like an approach to 

 mortification, (for rottenness is an expression that has here no 

 definite meaning whatever,) may take place in the course of four 

 and twenty hours. Indeed, when pneumonia proves fatal, it 

 most commonly does so in the course of the first three, or four, or 

 five days ; if it continue beyond this, or there be any remission, 

 it is always a favorable indication. In these cases, the lungs 

 themselves, as I have just stated, are found nearly black, of the 

 color of the darkest venous blood, with which they are pro- 

 digiously glutted ; the pleura also displays a surface highly vas- 

 cular, and adhesions are occasionally discovered upon it." 



The hot, moist atmosphere, which is to be found in the majority 

 of unventilated stables, prevents the insensible perspiration from 

 being evaporated with that rapidity so necessary for the purifica- 

 tion of the system. The atmosphere may be said to be saturated 

 with moisture, so that the excrementitious materials thrown out 

 from the external surface, instead of finding a ready outlet in 

 space, where they would be soon decomposed and again made 

 fit for respiratory uses, are condensed on the surface, and reab- 

 sorbed in their defiling state. It has been discovered by a number 

 of experiments, that when warm-blooded animals are placed in a 

 hot atmosphere, saturated with moisture, the temperature of their 

 bodies is gradually raised 12° or 13° above the natural standard, 

 and that the consequence is then inevitably fatal. Let it be under- 

 stood, then, that no evaporation from the skin can take place when 

 the stable atmosphere is saturated with vapor, and also that if this 

 be the case, the heat of the body increases, rather than decreases — 

 a condition which places our patient beyond the reach of the veter- 

 inary art. A peculiar feature in the treatment of inflammatory 

 pneinnony is, to withdraw heat from the body by evaporation. It 

 is well known that a profuse exhalation from the surface fulfils all 

 the indications that are contemplated in the use of the fleam, and 

 the practice is more rational and less prostrating. A large quan- 

 tity of solid animal matter, besides other secretions, is carried 

 out of the system by the skin, and the patient is thus relieved. 

 " That which is called the hydropathic system proceeds upon 

 the plan of increasing the cutaneous exhalation to a very large 



