GENERAL DISEASES. 317 



Symptoms. — In acute articular rheumatism, the affected 

 joints are hot, inflamed, painful, and swollen. This condition 

 is not unfrequently mistaken for rickets, and when treated as 

 such, it scarcely need be added that great harm is done to 

 the patient. 



The animal moves about with extreme difficulty, uttering 

 sharp yelping cries, expressive of the torture the movements 

 create. 



Considerable constitutional disturbance is usually mani- 

 fested ; the pulse is rapid and jerking, the respiration in- 

 creased, the breath foetid, and the tongue loaded with fur. 

 Constipation is generally present, and the urine is scanty and 

 turbid. 



As in the human subject, a remarkable feature of the dis- 

 ease is its tendency to move from place to place — a joint 

 suddenly becomes affected, and as suddenly the disease may 

 leave it (or continue there), and appear with the same short 

 notice in another part j and so it goes on, mystifying those 

 persons unacquainted with the nature of the complaint. 



shown by its deposits, warrant the hypothesis that the poison which the 

 whole disorder would seem to be an effort to discharge from the blood, is 

 some sort of acid. Dr. Prout conjectured that the phenomena of acute 

 rheumatism might depend upon the presence in the blood of lactic acid ; 

 and some very remarkable experiments made by Dr. Richardson lend 

 weight and likelihood to this conjecture. Into the peritoneum of a healthy 

 cat he introduced a solution of lactic acid in water. In two hours the ac- 

 tion of the cat's heart became irregular. The next morning the animal 

 was found dead. There was no peritoneal inflammation, but marked en- 

 docarditis in the left chambers of the heart. The mitral valve was in- 

 ilamed and thickened, and covered on its free borders with firm, fibrinous 

 deposits. The whole inner surface of the ventricle was highly vascular. 

 A dog, on which a similar experiment was tried, died in two days. Un- 

 equivocal evidence of endocarditis was disclosed upon examination of the 

 heart. The tricuspid valve was swollen to twice its ordinary size. The 

 aortic valves, inflamed and enlarged, presented fibrinous beads along 

 their edges ; and the entire endocardial surface was red. The pericar- 

 dium was simply dry. There was, however, no affection of the joints." — 

 " Watson's lectures on the Principles and Practice of Physic," vol. ii. p. 

 810. 



