36 DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



or drawing motion of tlie flanks at each breath, by holding the head in a peculiar, 

 stretched, and somewhat drooping position, by a slow and undecided gait, a peculiar 

 hoarseness when caused to squeal, &c. The attending fever is severe enough to an- 

 nounce its presence by unmistakable symptoms, such as accelerated pulsation, change- 

 able temperature, &c. Some of the sick animals show at the beginning of the disease 

 a tendency to vomit, and have diarrhea, while others are more or less constipated from 

 the first, and remain so until the disease is ready to terminate in death. If the catarrhal 

 character is the most prevailing, but especially if the morbid process has developed 

 principally in the throat and in the windpipe, more or less outside swelling (quinsy) 

 will make its appearance. 



At j>08<-mo»'/eni examinations some important morbid changes are fonnd invariably 

 in the lungs. Portions of the same have become impervious to air by being gorged 

 ■with exudation. The diseased tissue has lost its spongy texture — has become heavier 

 and more morbid, and similar in consistency to a piece of liver, a condition called 

 " hepatization." In some cases the diseased or hepatized parts of the lungs present a 

 uniform red or reddish-brown color, an indication that the exudation has been pro- 

 duced and deposited in the tissue of all the diseased lobules at the same time, or with- 

 out interruption. In other cases the diseased portions of the lungs present different 

 colors ; some are red, some brown, and others gray or yellowish-gray, which gives the 

 whole hepatized part a soiuewhat marbled appearance, and shows that the exudation 

 has been produced and deposited at different periods. The gray hepatization, which, 

 in such a case, is the oldest, and the brown, which comes next in age, frequently con- 

 tain a few tubercles, and even here and there a small ulcer interspersed. Otherwise 

 neither ulceration nor suppuration has been observed. Important morbid changes are 

 usually also formed in the serous membranes of the thorax. The same consist in a 

 more or less firm coalescence between parts of thepulmonal pleura and the correspond- 

 ing parts of the costal pleura, or of the diaphragm, and in an accumulation of a larger 

 or smaller quantity of straw-colored water or seruiu in the chest. In some cases, es- 

 pecially those in which the rheumatic character has been very predominating, the 

 morbid products of the diseased serous membranes are frequently very copious ; the 

 adhesion between the costal and pulmonal pleura, or between the internal surface of 

 the walls of the thorax and the external surface of the lungs, is usually very exten- 

 sive, and parts of the posterior surface of the lungs are sometimes found firmly united 

 with the corresponding surface of the diaphragm, or membranous partition between 

 the chest and the abdominal cavity. The quantity of serous exudation or straw-col- 

 ored water deposited in the chest is often very large, and the pericardium, too, in 

 most cases, contains a larger or smaller quantity, sometimes enough to interfere seri- 

 ously with the functions of the heart, and to constitute in that way the immediate 

 cause of death. The blood is found to be thin and watery in every case, coagulating 

 rapidly to a uniform but rather pale-red clot of a loose texture. Its quantity is always 

 very small. 



2. The GASTPac-RHEUMATic FORM. — This form presents itself not quite so often as 

 the catarrhal rheumatic, but is fully as malignant, and constitutes the second main 

 form which the disease is found to assume. The morbid process has its principal seat 

 and produces the most important morbid changes in some of the organs situated in 

 the abdominal cavity, but especially in the liver, in the spleen or milt, in the kidneys 

 and ureters, in the intestines or guts, ayd almost invariably in the peritoneum or 

 serous membrane which lines the interior surface of the abdominal cavity and con- 

 stitutes the external coat of nearly every intestine. 



The symptoms which present themselves while the animal is living differ not very 

 conspicuously from these observed in the catarrhal-rheumatic form. The short, hack- 

 ing cough, characteristic of the latter, is more or less wanting ; thediflficalty of breath- 

 ing is less plain ; the weakness in the hindquarters, and the staggering or unsteady 

 gait observed only in a limited degree in the catarrhal-rheumatic form are more con- 

 spicuous, and the fever is fully as high in one form as in the other. In some cases the 

 affected animals arch their backs, or rather the lumbal portion of the same, to a very 

 high degree, and form an outline similar iu shape to an ~'. I observed this especially in 

 such cases as those iu which the seat of the disease was found to be in the kidneys and 

 in the ureters, and in which a large quantity of serum or water had accumulated in 

 the abdominal cavity. Animals affected with the gastric or bilioue-rheumatic form are 

 usually more or less constipated. The dung, which is voided in form of small, irregu- 

 lar-shaped balls or lumps, is often coated with a layer of grayish or discolored mucus, 

 and has the consistency of shoemaker's wax. Toward the end, however — that is, if 

 the disease has a fatal termination — the costiveness usually disappears, and is followed 

 by a profuse and very fetid diarrhea, which may be looked upon in every instance as 

 a forerunner of death. 

 The principal morbid changes, as I have found them, are as follows : 

 1. Degeneration of the liver, lirought about by a copious exudation infiltrated into 

 the tissue of that organ. Such a degeneration, although not a constant morbid change, 

 is found quite often. In some (not very frequent") cases a few tubercles, and in others 



