504 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



The thorax also contained considerable fluid, which escaped without ad- 

 measurement. 



I now examined the bronchial tubes, the lower portions of the windpipe, 

 CESophagus, &c., and found them all in an apparently healthy condition. 

 Before tracing these passages to the throat, I removed the upper portion 

 of the skull and carefully examined the brain and its investing mem- 

 branes. All seemed in a perfectly normal state. I then made a longitu- 

 dinal section down through the middle part of the whole head, as is shown 

 in fig. 49, and the seat and character of the fatal malady stood at once 

 revealed ! 



The mucous membrane lining the whole nasal cavity, highly congested 

 and thickened throughout its whole extent, betrayed the most intense in- 

 flammation. At the junction of the cellular ethmoid bones with the cribri- 

 form plate, (in the ethmoidal cells,) slight ulcers were forming on the mem- 

 braneous lining ! The inflammation also extended to the mucous mem- 

 brane of the pharynx, and say three inches of the upper portion of the oeso- 

 phagus. Here it rather abruptly terminated. 



Case 8th. Old, in lamb. External appearances as in preceding cases — 

 abdominal parietes healthy — all the viscera apparently healthy. The in- 

 flammation of the mucous membrane lining the nasal cavity, pharynx, and 

 upper portion of oesophagus, as in Case 7th, only not quite so acute — no 

 ulcers on the membrane. 



Cases 5th and 6th reviewed. The heads of these two subjects having 

 been accidentally preserved; I examined them, and found the inflammatory 

 action of the mucous membrane same as in cases 7th and 8th. Nor have I 

 a particle of doubt that the same would have been found the case in all 

 the preceding subjects, had they been examined. 



Nosology and Treatment. — I had little difficulty in coming to the conclu- 

 sion that the primary and main disease was a species of catarrh. It evidently, 

 however, differed from ordinary catarrh in its diagnosis, and in the extent 

 of the lesions accompanying both the primary and symptomatic dis- 

 eases. 



In no case, even in the first attack, did I notice anything — the fever — 

 the accelerated pulse — the redness about the eyes and nostrils — the cough- 

 ing, etc., accompanying an ordinary severe attack of catarrh. And it was 

 for this reason that I was misled as to the seat of the malady. From the 

 very outset, according to my observations, the type of the disease was 

 typhoid — sinking — rapidly tending to fatal prostration. 



How to reduce the local inflammation of the membrane lining the nasal 

 cavities, I was at a loss to determine. I was satisfied thaf there was too 

 much debility to admit of an antiphlogistic course of treatment. Still, to 

 make myself sure, I bled in three or four cases, and, as I anticipated, it 

 evidently accelerated the fatal catastrophe. Blistering could not be brought 

 near to the seat of the inflammation, excepting on the nose, and independ- 

 ent of the extreme difficulty of treating a blister on a spot so constantly 

 exposed to dirt, the rubbing of hay, etc., in winter feeding, I believed it 

 could have little effect, on an account of the thick nasal bone intervening 

 between it and anij portion of the inflamed membrane. And, moreover, 

 the greater portion of the inflamed membrane rested on bones detached, 

 except at one extremity, from all connection with the nasal bone. I blew 

 Scotch snuff" (through paper tubes) up the nostrils of some of the sheep, 

 for two objects — l,to remove, by sneezing, the mucus, which mechanical- 

 ly, and evidently injuriously, obsti'ucted respiration ; and 2, to produce a 

 new action, by which an increased mucous secretion would be excited, 

 and thus the congested membrane relieved. But, farther than this, I re- 



(944) 



