PLEURO-PNEUMONIC EPIZOOTIC AMONG CATTLE. 495 
digestion. Now, taking these phenomena into consideration, my 
opinion with respect to the intestinal disease so often found in 
post-mortem examinations of this affection is, that when the lungs 
are deprived of the power of exercising their proper function on ac- 
count of the extensive effusion of lymph into their substance, the 
biliary secretion, in order to throw off by another way the accumu- 
lating carbon, is increased, and the intestinal mucous membrane, 
stimulated inordinately, takes on an inflammatory action with its 
consequences. I mostly find this action existing in proportion to 
the impervious pulmonary tissue. 
With regard to cerebral effusion, I must confess that it is only 
since this month’s Veterinarian, came to hand that I have 
examined the brain with sufficient accuracy to offer any opinion. 
In one case, however, there was considerable vascularity of the 
choroid plexus, and more than the usual quantity of fluid in the 
ventricles. In another case nothing peculiar was observed. My 
researches shall, however, be more extended here, though I can 
scarcely conceive these appearances due to any other cause than 
a sympathetic participation of the cerebral cavities along with 
other serous surfaces, in the general disturbance. I have also seen 
the synovial membranes also implicated, which I know not how 
to account for otherwise. 
The symptoms, as I previously stated, are at the outset some- 
what obscure, but to the practical man sufficiently indicative 
of what is passing within. The first is a limited quantity of 
milk, then tenderness of the spine, with diminished appetite, and 
terminating with short, quick, catching breathing, and slight 
cough. The animal is unable to bear pressure or percussion on 
the costal regions, and flinches much if the trachea or lower parts 
of the throat are pinched. The pulse varies from 65 to 75, 
sometimes more, but seldom strong. These gradually increase 
in severity ; but the usual indications of acute pleurisy or pneu- 
monia are seldom developed, or, if so, the animal, under proper 
treatment, usually recovers. 
The duration of these cases is various, from one to three weeks, 
at the expiration whereof the animal dies of what may be termed 
chronic asphyxia, the pulmonary tissue being occupied by lymph 
and a frothy mucus, or, what produces the same effect (if the 
pleura has been chiefly affected), effusion into the thoracic cavity. 
In one case which I examined the lung occupying the right 
side weighed sixty-nine pounds, and I have often seen from sixty 
to seventy pounds of fluid taken from the chest. Now, although 
matters reach to this alarming extent, yet, as before noticed, the 
inflammatory symptoms are decidedly of a sub-acute character, 
at times almost disappearing, and never existing in any great in- 
