8 HEALTH AND DISEASE 



Symptoms. There is a train of symptoms that may be called common 

 to all inflammatory disorders of the respiratory system, and only the 

 expert can, with any degree of accuracy, distinguish between them. 

 Following upon catarrh, it cannot be said precisely when pneumonia com- 

 mences, but there will be increased temperature and accelerated breathing, 

 though in the latter connection not to the extent observed in acute pulmo- 

 nary congestion. The mucous membranes exhibit a rusty or brick -red 

 colour, and the pulse is small and irritable. The skin and extremities will 

 be more or less cold, but scarcely with the icy coldness of acute congestion, 

 nor will the sweating and trembling of that condition be present as a rule. 



There is very little appetite, a tendency to constipation, and the urine 

 is highly coloured and small in quantity. While the cough of a common 

 cold and of bronchitis is accompanied with a more or less considerable 

 discharge of mucus from the nostrils, there is but little in pneumonia, 

 and what there is is thin and frothy, but as the disease advances there 

 is a foetid odour to the breath, and the matter expectorated is more or 

 less reddened from admixture with spoilt blood and other decomposing 

 material. 



If the chest sounds are listened to throughout an attack they will 

 at first be observed to be louder and harsher than in health, but as the 

 air-tubes become charged with inflammatory products they undergo modifi- 

 cation and give out minute crepitant or crackling sounds. When the 

 air-cells and small tubes become actually filled with these products, and 

 air is altogether excluded, crepitation ceases as a result of consolidation 

 of the lung substance. The bronchial sounds in the upper part of the 

 chest, however, are more or less exaggerated. Percussion applied to the 

 chest by means of the fingers will enable us to make out with more or 

 less accuracy the part of the lung which has undergone solidification, as 

 there is an absence of resonance over the part where no air passes in or 

 out. In speaking of congestion of the lungs, the rapid progress of the 

 disease has been referred to, and in this it differs from pneumonia, which 

 may take a week in reaching a crisis, and probably two or more weeks 

 before the symptoms have quite disappeared, a high temperature being- 

 maintained for many days. Relapses of a febrile character, at a time 

 when considerable progress has been made, are not uncommon, and would 

 seem to be due, in many instances, to infection of the blood with morbid 

 matter, resulting from the disintegration of lung tissue. 



Treatment. Before determining what method of treatment should 

 be adopted, it is well to consider the history of the individual and the 

 circumstances that have led up to the illness. Also his condition, whether 

 it is one of poverty and weakness if the animal is an aged one or a 



