ENDOCARDITIS. 399 



Treatment. The treatment of rheumatic fever and rheu- 

 matic endocarditis, are one and the same. Evacuants, seda- 

 tives, and salines are the remedies to be employed. From 

 ten to twenty drops of tincture of aconite, or half-drachm 

 doses of digitalis, may be given with four ounces of liquor 

 ammonise acetatis, in a quart of water, morning and night, 

 to the large herbivora. To the dog, two or three drops of 

 tincture of aconite, or hydrocyanic acid, with a table-spoonful 

 of liquor ammonia acetatis, in a wine-glassful of water, may 

 be given at similar intervals. Mustard poultices and active 

 blisters will relieve. If the dyspnoea and embarrassment of 

 the heart's action continue long, organic lesions of the valves 

 may be declared to exist, which will for ever incapacitate an 

 animal for work I do not agree with Leblanc, who says: 

 " It is very rare when the first symptoms do not appear very 

 promptly, and in the course of three or four days, that the 

 disease does not last several months. It is under these cir- 

 cumstances that we must not leave the animal to nature. 

 Sinapisms, blisters, setons, moderate diet on soft food, are to 

 be employed." My advice is the reverse, as I never knew 

 an animal recover so as to work well and with comfort to 

 itself, unless the acute symptoms of endocarditis had been 

 fairly subdued, and no organic trace of the disease left. 



FOREIGN BODIES INJURING THE HEART. 

 Very many cases are recorded of sharp-pointed objects in 

 the shape of bits of wire, knitting-needles, nails, pins, &c., 

 passing from the second stomach through the diaphragm to 

 the heart, and producing symptoms of pericarditis. There 

 are certain countries in which cows are very frequently at- 

 tacked thus, and entirely from the manner in which they are 

 kept, and the many opportunities offered for the animals 

 to pick up objects which their female attendants use, and 



