468 Veterinary Medicine. 



bones or joints, which may be the herald of the heart disease. 

 The shock of the heart's impulse is sometimes excessive and the 

 sound loud, and the morbid murmur may take on a purring or 

 humming character. In cattle, as well as in the dog, it is possi- 

 ble to auscultate the two sides of the heart separately and thereby 

 to identify the exact seat of the murmur. 



Pig. Symptoms. Following an infectious disease, or constitut- 

 ing a form or complication of it, endocarditis is necessarily asso- 

 ciated with all the symptoms of such affection. In the common 

 specific fevers, discoloration to cyanosis of the skin of the white 

 pig and its visible mucosae is to be looked for. Cyanosis is, how- 

 ever, likely to appear to an excessive degree, even independently 

 of these diseases, whenever the diseased valves have become in- 

 sufficient. There may have been previous symptoms of rheu- 

 matism, or bone and joint disease, or of omphalitis. The 

 diagnostic symptoms are, however, those of the heart, violent 

 impulse, palpitations, fremitus, intermissions, irregularities, and, 

 above all, the blowing or purring murmurs with the first or second 

 sound. 



Dog. Symptoms. In this animal the primary disease is likely 

 to have been distemper, rheumatism, tuberculosis, bone disease, 

 or ulcerous stomatitis, and the supervention of morbid heart sounds 

 which do not become weakened by effusion as in pericarditis, 

 may well suggest endocarditis. A dry paroxysmal abortive 

 cough, greatly accelerated pulse (130 to 190), difficult breathing, 

 dyspnoeic on slight exertion, palpitations, inequalities in rhythm, 

 intermissions, strong heart-shock, and a fremitus conveyed to the 

 hand which grasps the sternum, are to be looked on as indicative 

 of endocarditis. As auscultated over the breast bone the sounds 

 are remarkably clear and the blowing or purring murmurs with 

 the first or second heart sound can not only be clearly heard, but 

 may be distinctly referred to the affected side of the heart and to 

 the particular valve, auriculo-ventricular or arterial. Mathis 

 says that a blowing murmur heard on the right side over the 

 fourth rib, the patient's nose being held so as to suppress all 

 respiratory sounds, is an infallible sign of endocarditis. 



Diagnosis from pericarditis is determined by the absence of the 

 early friction sound, systolic and diastolic, and of the later distant, 

 muffled heart-sounds after the friction sound has ceased : also 



