CARDITIS. MYOCARDITIS. 



Definition. Rare. Complicates pericarditis and endocarditis, wounds of 

 the heart, and tubercular and other deposits. Symptoms. Treatment. 



Definitioti. Inflammation of the muscular substance of the 

 heart. 



This is a rare affection and is necessarily limited to a small por- 

 tion of the heart's substance, otherwise, the cardiac contractions 

 must cease in obedience to the general law that the normal func- 

 tion of an inflamed organ is for the time abolished. It is mainly 

 seen as a concomitant of endocarditis or pericarditis, and extends 

 only to the superficial muscular layers ; or it results from a wound 

 as in the penetration of the heart by a needle or other sharp- 

 pointed body and is then equally circumscribed. It has been 

 seen as a complication in infectious diseases — aphthous fever, 

 pyaemia, septicaemia, pneumonia and tuberculosis. 



The evidences of the existence of carditis are chiefly the lesions 

 met with after death, ist, The existence of abscesses in the 

 heart's substance associated with polypus (Gowing, Leblanc, 

 etc.,) or otherwi.se (Reynal). Also diffuse suppuration in the 

 heart's substance (Puze, etc.) 2nd, Softening of the muscular 

 substance a state occasionally met with when an animal has died 

 of ruptured heart. 3d, Ulceration of the walls of the heart as 

 reported by Mercier in a case of endocarditis. 4th, Transforma- 

 tion, and induration of the heart's substance whether into 

 fibrous tissue, cartilage or bone. This last condition of the walls 

 of the right auricle and ventricle has been repeatedly seen in old 

 horses, the change being in certain cases so extensive that one is 

 left in wonder as to how circulation could have been carried on. 

 Three .specimens of this kind were preserved in the museum of 

 the Alfort Veterinary College, Paris, and the Royal Veterinary 

 College, I/ondon. lyafo.sse records two cases of gangrene of the 

 internal layers of muscle in endocarditis. 



The symptoms are those of acute heart disease generally modi- 

 fied somewhat by the precise location of the inflamed spot, and 

 treatment need not differ materially from that applied for inflam- 

 mation of the investing membranes, inner and outer, and for the 

 infectious disease which it complicates. 

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