188 INFLAMMATION OF THE LUNGS. 



dread of suffocation more than a feeling of pain. The head is 

 protruded, and the nostrils distended, and the mouth and the 

 breath intensely hot. The nose is injected from the earliest pe- 

 riod ; and soon afterwards there is not merely injection, but the 

 membrane is uniformly and intensely red. The variation in this 

 intensity is anxiously marked by the observant practitioner; and 

 he regards with fear and despair the livid or dirty brownish hue 

 that gradually creeps on. 



The unfavorable symptoms are, increased coldness of the ears 

 and feet, if that be possible ; partial sweats, grinding of the teeth, 

 evident weakness, staggering, the animal not lying down. The 

 pulse becomes quicker, and weak and fluttering ; the membrane 

 of the nose paler, but of a dirty hue ; the animal growing stupid, 

 comatose. At length he falls, but he gets up immediately. For 

 awhile he is up and down almost every minute, until he is no 

 longer able to rise ; he struggles severely ; he' piteously groans ; 

 the pulse becomes more rapid, fainter, and he dies of suflbcation. 

 The disease sometimes runs its course with strange rapidity. A 

 horse has been destroyed by pure pneumonia in twelve hours 

 The vessels ramifying over the cells have yielded to the fearful 

 impulse of the blood, and the lungs have presented one mass of 

 congestion. 



The favorable symptoms are, the return of a little warmth to 

 the extremities — the circulation beginning again to assume its 

 natural character, and, next to this, the lying down quietly and 

 without uneasiness ; showing us that he is beginning to do with- 

 out the auxihary muscles. These are good symptoms, and they 

 will rarely deceive. 



Congestion is a frequent termination of pneumonia. Not only 

 are the vessels gorged — the congestion which accompanies com- 

 mon inflammation — ^but their parietes are necessarily so thin, in 

 order that the change in the blood may take place although 

 they are interposed, that they are easily ruptured, and the cells 

 are filled with blood. This efiiised blood soon coagulates, and 

 the lung, when cut into, presents a black, softened, pulpy kind 

 of appearance, termed by the farrier and the groom, rottenness, 

 and being supposed by them to indicate an old disease. It 

 proves only the violence of the disease, the rupture of many a 

 vessel surcharged with blood ; and it also proves that the disease 

 is of recent date, for in no great length of time, the serous por- 

 tion of the blood becomes absorbed, the more solid one becomes 

 organized, the cells are obliterated, and the lung is hepatized — 

 i. e. assumes the appearance of liver. 



In every case of pneumonia, early and anxious recourse should 

 be had to auscultation. Here, again, is the advantage of being 

 perfectly acquainted with the deep distant murmur presented by 



