248 Epidemics. 



modern appliance which chemistry, light, or micrology can 

 afford. 



If, then, in giving a description of chronic congestion of 

 the lungs, and one which very rarely presents itself as an 

 acute disease,* a difference exists to those usually given in 

 works treating upon lung diseases, one apology alone can be 

 given for the apparent difference, and it is this that, as a 

 rule, the lungs and heart are not subjected to ausculation 

 if no symptoms are apparent of some chest affection, 

 either from direct observation or from some remarks made 

 by the patient ; but the more uniform habit of examining all 

 patients by auscultation in a rapid manner, and more care- 

 fully, if anything in the rapid form of examination seemed to 

 indicate some error in function or sound, would often lead 

 to more accurate knowledge of the course of a disease as 

 it passes from beginning to end. 



Whilst speaking about chronic congestion in man, which 

 is also found, as before said, in an acute form, but 

 much more rarely, the fact f pleuro-pneumonia in cattle 

 observed chiefly since 1846 in this country must not be 

 entirely overlooked. The disease is still present, but in a 

 very modified condition, compared with that in which it 

 presented itself at the earlier period. 



Milch cows suffered mostly, and in London it would last 

 from ten days to twenty-one, and now and then for six 

 weeks. It was essentially the same in London and the 

 country, but decidedly more acute in the country. 



In the earlier part of this affection the trachea and larger 

 bronchi were affected from the commencement of the disease, 

 and cattle would cough up long masses of organized lymph 

 or false membrane, similar to what is occasionally coughed 

 up in cases of croup, only much longer and more massive. 



* For the acute form, now much modified since 1841 in Ireland, see 

 the Edinburgh Medical journal, October, 1856, p. 360. 



