EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
289 
their being stabled and put to work ! And these are precisely the 
cases which we are so often called upon to treat and pronounce 
opinions upon, not only as to the issue of their malady in their 
state of suffering during life, but as to the standing and nature of 
the disease of those that happen to die. 
Disease of the pleura (pleurisy) is distinguished, by medical 
men, from disease of the lung (pneumonia) ; and such distinctions 
are now made during life with some near approach to the certainty 
which characterizes them after death ; though in horses the diag- 
nosis is not commonly so strongly marked as in men ; neither are 
the diseases so clearly separable after death : in the quadruped 
they run more into each other, usually presenting themselves 
under the mixed form of pleuro-pneumonia. Not that we are to 
understand from the frightful mortality which an epidemic disease, 
so called, has of late years been creating among cattle, meaning 
of that appalling character which has been attached to this word, 
one that veterinary science has offered, in our estimation, no true 
or substantial ground for entertaining; but that we are simply i in- 
formed by it that inflammation has been simultaneously present in 
both lung and pleura; has extended probably from one to the other, 
the symptoms before death and the appearances after, affording 
ground for an opinion as to priority of attack. 
The internal or secreting surface of the pleura, when the chest 
is recently opened, is, in its normal or healthy state, pale, almost 
colourless, and glistening from the moisture with which it is be- 
dewed; unless the chest should have been for some time lying 
open, and then, from the air having dried up its natural humidity, 
the surface of the membrane, though it still appears smooth and 
polished, has lost its moist and shining aspect. Inflammation, re- 
cent in its character, is depicted in the membrane by bright and 
variegated redness of it, caused by its hosts of capillary vessels 
being filled with red blood, and distinctly shewing themselves to 
the observer in the form of a very beautiful network, most con- 
spicuous under the arches of the ribs. In some cases the redden- 
ing is pretty general throughout the exposed surface of the mem- 
brane. More frequently its intensity varies, giving the surface a 
patchy or streaky aspect. In all cases the hollows of the ribs ex- 
hibit pleuritic inflammation most strikingly and admirably. This 
VOL. XXIII. Q q 
