278 THE LATE EPIDEMIC DISEASES AMONG HOUSES, &c. 
This is the fourth year that a dairy has been on the farm, and 
it had hitherto done well. The cows are in good condition, and 
mostly within four to ten weeks of calving. A cow not in calf, 
and a bullock, are better, but they still cough : the cough, how- 
ever, was not so severe in them. 
“ A few lines on the treatment, and any other remarks you 
may be pleased to make, will confer on me a lasting obliga- 
tion/’ 
The following reply was kindly sent by the worthy Professor : it 
does him the highest credit, and contains an interesting, and faith- 
ful account of the present epidemic : — 
My dear Sir, — 1 have heard from various quarters that a dis- 
ease has been attacking cattle all over England, in which the 
chest is principally affected, and in the same manner as those you 
describe. 
It is evidently an epizootic depending chiefly on some atmo- 
spheric influence, combining with certain peculiarities in the par- 
ticular localities where it has made its appearance, and partaking 
much of the nature of the common influenza with which horses 
have, for a few years back, been frequently attacked. 
It appears in cattle, as well as in horses, to present some variety 
in its symptoms according to the particular organs in the chest 
which are affected ; the greater or less extent of the inflamma- 
tion, in one part more than another, requiring a modification of 
treatment according to these circumstances, and to the particular 
stage in which the disease may chance to be observed, and in 
which you are called to see it. 
From the circumstance of “ the pleura being inflamed, coated 
with lymph, and adhesions having taken place, together with 
effusion of serum into the chest and more especially the 
pericardium being distended with serum, I am of opinion that 
the disease is most commonly, if not invariably, in the first 
instance , principally an inflammatory one of the serous membranes 
of the chest, the pleura, and pericardium. This afterwards ex- 
tends from the pleura to the other tissues of the lungs, partly 
by contiguity and continuity of parts, and also by the increased 
susceptibility of the lining membrane of the ramifications of 
the air-passages of the lungs, produced by the action of the 
same state of the atmosphere as that which operates on the sur- 
face of the body, and through it, sympathetically, on the serous 
membranes. This appears to me to be the nature and progress of 
the disease in the form you describe : but it is, at the same time, 
necessary to observe that the disease may extend to the pleura 
