AIR-PASSAGES OF HORSES. 
341 
In some instances pleuritis or pneumonitis appears to intervene 
between the bronchitic disease and the effusion into the pleural 
cavity or pericardium. The indications of inflammation extending 
through the subdivisions of the bronchi to the substance of the 
lungs and to the pleura are apparent by auscultation, and by the 
movements of the thorax; and, when so occurring, are generally 
in aged horses, that is to say, horses eight years old and past. 
Unfavourable cases of the disease occur in which the energies 
of life fail quickly. In these the oppression quickly increases; the 
sputa is abundant, and discharged with considerable difficulty; the 
cough is exceedingly painful, frequent, and convulsive; the coun¬ 
tenance is dejected; the pulse increases in number and weakness, 
and is sometimes irregular or intermittent; patches of sweat break 
out about the face, eyelids, neck, or shoulders; the breathing is 
quick, difficult, wheezing, or rattling; there is great and rapid 
prostration of strength, and, unless cerebral affection terminates the 
case, the animal sinks, with all the symptoms of imperfectly changed 
blood. 
Bronchitis is, in some very acute cases, attended by much irri¬ 
tation and severe local signs, and in which the breathing is very 
short, quick, laborious, and roaring. Collapse then takes place 
very rapidly, more especially in instances of inappropriate or de¬ 
ferred treatment, and in those in which the respiratory mucous sur¬ 
face is almost entirely invaded by inflammatory action, and the 
secretion so abundant as to render the excretion of it exceedingly 
difficult: then the animal is carried off by suffocation, while there 
are evident signs of the circulation of venous blood. 
On dissection, the bronchi are loaded with a muco-purulent li¬ 
quid, and the vessels of the lungs distended with dark-coloured 
blood. 
Complications .—The states of complication most frequently ob¬ 
served in bronchitis in the horse, are catarrhal sore throat, catarrhal 
inflammation of the pharynx, larynx, or trachea, to all of which it is 
frequently consecutive. It may also antecede inflammation of those 
several parts; it may be simultaneous with pneumony, pleurisy, 
or pericarditis, or in some cases antecedent to either of these af¬ 
fections. 
In disease of the liver, and bile accumulated in the biliary canals, 
or disorder of the muco-digestive surface, or subacute inflamma¬ 
tion of this membrane and diarrhoea; the association of bronchitis 
seriously increases the danger of these maladies, and, by the un¬ 
favourable form the bronchial disease assumes, their termination is 
very often fatal. 
Bronchitis presents a more acute form when complicated with 
other diseases, and is accompanied by a greater dis[)osition to cx- 
