PROGRESS OF VETERINARY SCIENCE AND ART. 337 
for 1 855, at page 200, says, that, “ according to the stage of 
the disease when the animal died, there is either a simple 
exudation into the interlobular cellular tissue of a limited por- 
tion of the lung, or the exudation may have already extended 
through the whole organ, or the exuded material is condensed, 
leading to the so-called hepatization ; rarely is gangrene, and 
never is suppuration, witnessed. The latter result would be 
met with if the lung plague — as the Germans call it — were 
an inflammatory disease.” I need scarcely say, that such is 
not reasoning — such is not argument. Condensation is not 
the process whereby lymph solidifies, and whereby a kind of 
false hepatization can occur. With reference to the last sen- 
tence of Schmelz, it would be just as well to say, that 
because in peritonitis suppuration rarely, if ever occurs, what 
is supposed to be in these cases inflammation of the peri- 
toneum is no inflammation whatever. 
Whoever, has observed the firm adhesions frequently 
undergoing the corneous degeneration that Paget has gra- 
phically described, the fibrillation of the lymph and its firm 
connection with the pulmonary or parietal pleura, can never 
for one moment fancy that i( condensation” of a non-inflam- 
matory product could possibly give it such an appearance 
and such structural peculiarities. 
I have just had occasion carefully to examine a specimen 
in which a strongly adherent false membrane covered either 
lung. Its semi-organized and firm condition was more than 
enough to prove to what process it owed its existence. At 
the same time, the small, weak, imperceptible pulse at the jaw 
during life, the whole train of constitutional symptoms any- 
thing but indicative of active local inflammation, might, in 
the minds of some, be ample reason for opposing my views 
on the subject. But, how many are the instances of unsus- 
pected inflammatory attacks of internal organs, unsuspected 
because occurring under such circumstances that many of 
the usual signs of acute disease were not to be recognised. 
If a man, w ho can indicate the seat of pain, dies of pyaemia 
with inflammation, and even suppuration, of both femoral 
veins, that had escaped the vigilant attention of the most 
expert in diagnosis, clear proof is not wanting of the tenable- 
ness of my proposition. Even in limiting ourselves to 
discuss the diseases of animals, the question may be asked 
— How far do the constitutional symptoms in influenza 
indicate the irritating effects, in the respiratory passages, of 
the cause in operation ? Still, in this instance, active inflam- 
mation may be marked by the general symptoms of depression 
and low^ fever. 
