503 



heard indicating the destruction of a considerable portion of lung tis- 

 sue and the formation of a cavity. Tlie eiiects of this more acute inflain- 

 matory process are not appreciable iu the general condition of the ani- 

 mal, except to still further weaken it and add to its debilitated and ema- 

 ciated cachexia. Gangrene frequently occurs. A sudden rise of the 

 body temperature one or two degrees, with a more enfeebled pulse and 

 a stdl more tumultuous heart, develop simultaneously with the appear- 

 ance of a discharge from the nostrils. This discharge is gray in color, 

 serous or watery in consistency, mixed with the detritus of broken- 

 down lung tissue, and sometimes contains clots of blood, or in more 

 serions cases may bo marked by a quantity of fluid blood from a hem- 

 orrhage, which proves fatal. Tlie discharge is fetid to the smell. The 

 animal emaciates rapidly. On examination of the lungs mucous rales 

 are heard in the larger bronchi, cavities may be found at any part of 

 these organs, and points of lobular pneumonia may be detected. 



Diagnosis. — The diagnosis of cedematous pneumonia at the outset is 

 aided greatly by a rigid examination of the surroundings, and still 

 more so by the history or knowledge of previous cases in the same sta- 

 ble. The cough and commencing fever of the first few days have noth- 

 ing diagnostic in them, but when combined with repeated chills, a soft 

 l)ulso, a tumultuous heart, the rapidly staiued dull yellow mucous mem- 

 branes, and the staggering gait of the animal without marked brain 

 trouble, the diagnosis becomes more easy. In pneumonia the fever is 

 always of a more sthenic character, the fever is concomitant, or pre- 

 cedes the marked lung trouble; the yellowish discoloration is a phe- 

 nomenon of the later stages of the disease; the debility of the muscles 

 is simple weakness, or, if complicated by want of coordination, it ac- 

 companies an evident brain trouble and loss of consciousness. In pneu- 

 monia there has alwaj^s been in the kings the regular series of absence 

 of vesicular murmur, crepitant rales, and then tubular murmur. While 

 the pulse in a simple pneumonia may in the later stages become very soft 

 and weak, it commences as a tense and full one. The heart only becomes 

 irregular as the result of cardial complication, and never assumes the 

 tumultuous character of the septic diseases unless gangrene occurs, in 

 which case the animal is only of value as a scientific study to the vet- 

 erinary atteudaiit. In influenza the symptoms of fever develop before 

 any local lesions are noticed. The feebleness of the muscles and want 

 of coordination are from the outset the evident result of a poisoned 

 condition of the brain, as shown by the stupor of the animal; the saf- 

 fron or ochre coloration of the visible mucous membrane is of a decided 

 tint, and while these membranes may be cedematous, they become so as 

 the result of an increase in the quantity of blood iu their capillaries, or 

 by congestion, and not from the cedematous infiltration of the watery 

 portion of the blood as in the disease in question. 



Prognosis.— CEdematoviS pneumonia is an excessively fatal disease. 

 We have seen that it usually attacks animals which are already in more 



