ACUTE ENDOCARDITIS. 467 



death happens in convulsions, mostly in less than one hour, 

 sometimes only after several hours. 



It is an accident without a remedy. Any treatment is illusory. 



ACUTE ENDOCARDITIS. 



Inflammation of the endocardium is much more frequent than 

 that of the myocardium, and it is certainly more common. The 

 horse, ox, and pig are the animals most affected by it ; it is rela- 

 tively rare in animals of our small species; we have observed it 

 but once in the cat. [It is perhaps one of the most common in- 

 flammatory diseases in the horse, with the possible exception of 

 pneumonia. Several instances have been brought to my notice in 

 which this condition has been diagnosticated as pleurisy, and there 

 is no doubt that many unrecognized cases are considered and treated 

 as other diseases. — w. L. z.] 



Etiology. Acute endocarditis is usually produced by infectious 

 agents which are suspended in the blood. It may happen as an 

 epiphenomenon of a number of infectious diseases: pyemia, septic 

 metritis, aphthous fever, etc. In the horse, in some cases, it com- 

 plicates simple pneumonia, contagious pneumonia, founder, and 

 violent colics. In the ox it appears often in the course of acute 

 articular rheumatism (Meyer, Ruchte). In the pig. Roth has also 

 seen rheumatismal polyarthritis accompanied by a fatal acute endo- 

 carditis. The inflammatory processes of the myocardium and peri- 

 cardium, of the lungs and pleura, are in some instances propagated 

 to the endocardium. Cold seems to play an important etiological 

 rôle in the horse (idiopathatic endocarditis à frigore — Trasbot). 

 Endocarditis is more rarely of a traumatic nature (Ebinger has 

 observed endocarditis in a cow as a cousequence of the fracture of 

 a rib made by a blow from the horn). Finally, predisposing causes 

 seem to exist : advanced age, which is accompanied by certain de- 

 generative processes (arterio-sclerosis, sclerosis of the aortic valves); 

 young age, during which an hereditary influence is sometimes felt 

 (Burke has seen all the puppies of the same litter killed by 

 endocarditis). A first attack of the disease predisposes to a return 

 of the trouble. Among the medicaments the prolonged adminis- 

 tration or excessive doses of which produce endocarditis, we must 

 especially mention digitalis. 



Wyssokowitsch has made very interesting experimental researches 



