442 Veterinary Medicine. 



which appear specific, there often coincide intemperate seasons, 

 badly arranged buildings, a want of sufi&cient attention to the 

 conditions of health, and in the case of herbivora, wet, cold, and 

 badly exposed pastures. ' ' In other words whatever deteriorates 

 the health and vitality predisposes, paving the way for microbian 

 invasion. 



Given thoracic epizootics attack the heart often, others, or the 

 same a few months later, respect it (Dumas). Cattle suffer 

 through blows with the horns of themselves or others, through 

 compression in a partly closed gate, through rheumatism, lung 

 plague, contagious pneumonia, tubercle etc. Oxen suffer 

 through chills after heating, exhausting work. 



In sheep acute infectious pericarditis, may be but a form of 

 hsemorrhagic septicaemia, malignant oedema, or emphysematous 

 anthrax. Again it may be parasitic (Echinococcus, Cysticercus 

 TenuicoUis). 



In pigs it is often but a manifestation of a prevailing infection 

 (swine-plague, rouget, tuberculosis, rheumatism,) or parasitism 

 (cysticercus cellulosa, trichina, echinococcus). 



Dogs have primary pericarditis from blows, kicks, bites, 

 goring, shot, etc. , and from chills in an exhausted system, but 

 far more commonly it is microbian (tuberculosis, distemper, 

 pyaemia). Tumors too are a common cause. 



Symptoms. These are less characteristic than in man owing to 

 the smaller portion of the heart exposed, but they are usually 

 marked enough to permit a recognition of the disease. Acute form. 

 The affection is ushered in by chill, general fever, hyperthermia, 

 (103° to 104°), staring coat, hot, drymouth, dilated nostrils, ex- 

 cited, difficult breathing, double lifting of the flank with each ex- 

 piration, the existence of a prominent ridge from the lower end of 

 the last ribs along the flank to the outer angle of the hip bone, as 

 in pleurisy, pinched, anxious expression of countenance, fixed 

 eyes, accelerated, full, hard and often wiry pulse, and tenderness 

 when the ribs behind the left elbow are pinched or struck. The 

 same tenderness is noticed particularly in the ox and smaller 

 quadrupeds when pressure or compression is made beneath the 

 breast bone. Auscultation over the lower ends of the fifth and 

 sixth ribs and their cartilages, detects a friction or rubbing sound 

 in the early stages, and until liquid has been thrown out into the 



