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COMPTE RENDU OF THE 
become the source of local gangrene, and of a more or less serious 
general putrid infection, according as one of the conditions essen- 
tial to the re-action of the organization, — the integrity of the hema- 
tosis, — is impaired or destroyed by the invasion of pneumonia. 
20. A moderate degree of warm and painful swelling about 
the seton, attended with rapid formation of pus, is one of the 
favourable signs in the prognostics of pneumonia : it shews that 
a revulsive and effective action, confined within proper limits, has 
been produced. 
On the other hand, the absence of pain and heat, and the non- 
existence of purulent secretion along the course of or at the orifices 
of the seton, are ever to be regarded as unfavourable symptoms; 
in fact, they announce weakness, oppression, and a failure of the 
organizing re-acting principle. 
The truth of this proposition is exhibited by the evident testi- 
mony of daily clinical facts. Frequently, at the commencement of 
pneumonia, when the disease is at its highest, external revulsives 
appear destitute of all sensible effects; but when, through the 
combined use of other remedies, the intensity of the disease is 
somewhat surmounted, re-establishment of the equilibrium of the 
bodily powers becomes manifest by the intensity of the revulsive 
action, which occasionally becomes too energetic*. 
21. The internal medicaments which have principally been 
employed this year, in conjunction with bleeding, in the treatment 
of pneumonia, are, sulphate of soda, and, still oftener, tartarised 
antimony. 
22. The last named drug, applied to the economy of the 
horse, has displayed invariable therapeutic power, with so great a 
degree of efficacy that in all the various cases in which it was used 
it has always been easy to attribute the cure of the patient to its 
influence. 
In other words, does an observation of the experiments made 
* I recollect a circumstance, illustrative of this point, where this pheno- 
menon was peculiarly evident. Some years ago a horse was brought, in a 
conveyance, to the hospital of the school, which was affected with complete 
paraplegia. This animal had already been treated by a veterinary surgeon, 
who had applied a seton stimulated with antimony ointment to each but- 
tock. For the first three days of the treatment no sensible amelioration ap- 
peared to take place in the state of the patient, nor did any symptom of 
re -action manifest itself at the parts to which the revulsives were applied : 
on the fourth day the animal made an effort to rise, and succeeded in sup- 
porting himself on his hind quarters : on the fifth day, the setons, which had 
hitherto been perfectly dry, began to swell, and the inflammatory action was 
so intense, that the skin, along their whole course, and for a considerable ex- 
tent of surface, became gangrened. Nevertheless, the horse was dismissed 
from the hospital, “ cured.” 
