2 6 6 BRONCHITIS. 



darnel, had been given instead. /* is said that the darnel is occasionally used by 

 brewers to give an intoxicating quality to their malt liquor. For fifteen 

 days no alteration of health was perceived, and then, in less than eighteen 

 hours, nearly forty perished. The stables were not crowded, and there was no 

 improper treatment. A man disinterred some of the horses to get at the fat ; 

 swellings rapidly appeared in his throat, and he died in two days. A portion of 

 their flesh was given to two pigs and some dogs, and they died. 



M. Brugnone found that bleeding only accelerated the death of the 

 patient. He afterwards tried, and ineffectually, acids, cordials, purgatives, 

 vesicatories, and the actual cautery ; and he frankly attributes to the power of 

 nature the recovery of the few who survived. 



Gilbert's Account of the Epidemic of 1795. — M. Gilbert describes a malignant 

 epidemic which appeared in Paris in 1795, characterized by dulness, loss of 

 appetite, weakness, pulse at first rapid and full, and afterwards continuing 

 rapid, but gradually becoming small, weak, and intermittent. The bowels at 

 first constipated, and then violent purging succeeding. The weakness rapidly 

 increasing, accompanied by foetid breath, and foetid evacuations. Tumours soon 

 appeared about the limbs, under the chest, and in the head, the neck and loins. 

 If they suppurated and burst, the animal usually did well ; but otherwise he 

 inevitably perished. The formation of these tumours was critical. If they 

 rapidly advanced, it was considered as a favourable symptom ; but if they con- 

 tinued obscure, a fatal termination was prognosticated. 



Bleeding, even in an early stage, seemed here also to be injurious, and 

 increased the debility. Physic was given, and mild and nutritious food, gruel, 

 and cordials. Deep incisions were made into the tumours, and the cautery 

 applied. Stimulating frictions were also used, but all were of little avail. 



These cases have been narrated at considerable length, in order to give some 

 idea of the nature of this disease, and because, with the exception of a short but 

 very excellent account of the malignant epidemic in the last edition of Mr. 

 Blaine's Veterinary Outlines, there will not be found any satisfactory history of 

 it in the writings of our English veterinarians. It is evidently a disease of the 

 mucous membranes, both the respiratory and digestive. It is accompanied by 

 early and great debility, loss of all vital power, vitiation of every secretion, effu- 

 sions and tumours everywhere, and it runs its course with fearful rapidity. If 

 it was seen at its outset, the practitioner would probably bleed ; but if a few 

 hours only had elapsed, he would find, with Messrs. Brugnone and Gilbert, that 

 venesection would only hasten the catastrophe. Stimulants should he adminis- 

 tered mingled with opium, and the spirit of nitrous ether in doses of three or 

 four ounces, with an ounce or more of laudanum. The quantity of opium should 

 be regulated by the spasms and the diarrhoea. These medicines should be 

 repeated in a few hours, combined, perhaps, with ginger and gentian. If these 

 failed, there is little else to be done. Deep incision? into the tumours, or blis- 

 ters over them, might be proper measures ; but the principal attention should 

 be directed to the arresting of the contagion. The infected should be immedi- 

 ately removed from the healthy. All offensive matter should be carefully 

 cleared away, and no small portion of chloride of lime used in washing the 

 animal, and particularly his ulcers. It might with great propriety be adminis- 

 tered internally, while the stable and everything that belonged to the patient, 

 should undergo a careful ablution with the same powerful disinfectant. 



BRONCHITIS. 

 This is not generally a primary disease. That inflammation of the superior 

 respiratory passages, constituting catarrh, gradually creeps downwards and 

 involves the larynx and the trachea, and at length, possibly, the farthest and 



