No. 244. J 38] 



pleura, but oftener in both; that its nature is inflammatory, acute or 

 chronic, simple or complicated with a putrefied alteration (alteration 

 septique) of the blood, or with intestinal inflammations, but that is 

 not necessarily, either putrid, gangrenous or pestilential. In short, 

 that the morbid element -which gives birth to the virus seems to be 

 an alteration of the lung, and that the vehicle of this virus is the ex- 

 posed air. 



When this disease attacks a herd of cattle, a single animal is first 

 seized, from 8 to 15 days subsequently one or two more, then imme- 

 diately five or six at a time, after a period it commences to relent, 

 appearing only from time to time and finally disappears. The num- 

 ber of beasts attacked and the mortality depend upon the season 

 and the climate. Every thing else equal, more animals are attacked 

 and the disease is deadlier when the food is particularly abundant 

 and nutritious. It is also particularly abundant when famine obliges 

 the farmer to feed poor nutriment. Changes of temperature have a 

 peculiar effect. Its duration in a stable is from a month to several 

 years. It attacks particularly adult and old cattle, rarely the young. 

 Especially it affects the full blooded young, the fine milking cows 

 and fatted cattle. Stable cattle when attacked, though the disease 

 is more gradual in its march, the result is as fearful. 



The disease may be acute or chronic. The attack when acute is 

 as follows: "When pneumonia attacks a horned animal, it continues 

 to eat, drink and ruminate; if a cow she gives milk as usual. In 

 the eyes of the farmer the animal is not sick. If however the sur- 

 geon attentively examines the animal, he finds the mucous lining of 

 the eyes injected and red, the respiration frequent, (25 to 30 a min- 

 ute,) the pulse accelerated, (50 or 60;) and auscultation makes known 

 in one or both lungs, either behind the shoulder or in the upper or 

 lower part of the chest a light sound of breathing or rubbing similar 

 to that produced by breathing through a glass tube this sound is ow- 

 ing to the passage of the air through the bronchial tubes. It al- 

 ways announces the commencement of the disease. * * * Per- 

 cussion on the pectoral walls shows sensibility. * * * The ani- 

 mal coughs frequently, and the cough is dry and slight, often unfin- 

 ished, rarely sonorous and full. Not unusually the cow frequently 

 desires the bull; as for the rest she appears to be well, she capers 

 about when going out of the stable, either to drink or to go to the 

 pasture, and I repeat in the eyes of the raisers, who judge only by 

 the exterior, she is not sick. 



