530 
DISEASES OF THE BLOOD 
heart, and the pulmonary artery and veins. These clots are formed 
of two distinct layers, one white superiorly, and very thick; the 
other, an inferior one, black, ,and of small size. This separation of 
the elements of the blood appears to take place during life. The 
ecchyrnotic depots formed in the vascular tissues by the hematosine, 
and the adherence of the fibrine to the valves of the heart, which 
we often meet with, and to which M. Renault first directed our 
attention, seem to leave no doubt on this subject. 
Acute diastathemia appears often during the progress of the 
milder variety. At other times it manifests itself all at once without 
any precursor sign, but always with a train of alarming symptoms, 
varied according to the locality which they occupy. Although this 
disease is uniformly the same as regards its nature, it has received 
in veterinary medicine the particular designations of gangrenous 
coryza, and inflammatory swelling of the head. It has been also 
sometimes improperly termed charbon, or a charbonneuse disease. 
This affection is characterized at its commencement by all the 
symptoms which announce mild diastathemia, only that they mani¬ 
fest themselves more promptly, and are sooner followed by the 
most serious symptoms. Numerous petechial spots appear on the 
conjunctival and the pituitary membranes, and sanguino-serous 
tumours, often indolent and circumscribed by a prominent edge, 
develope themselves at the extremity of the muzzle, at the inferior 
part of the limbs, and sometimes in other regions of the body. 
These tumours, which are actually depots of blood, make rapid 
progress, and are not long in destroying the animal. Similar san¬ 
guineous congestions form themselves in the pituitary membrane 
and in the lower portions of the lungs, where auscultation demon¬ 
strates a hypostatic enlargement, which gradually increases, and 
appears to follow the progress of the tumours. In those parts 
which are in contact with the air, such as the pituitary membrane 
and the lungs, the effused blood becomes promptly decomposed; 
the tissues which contain it are softened, and degenerate into gan¬ 
grene, exhaling an infectious odour. This kind of change of the 
pituitary membrane has often caused gangrenous coryza to be 
confounded with acute mange. 
The blood in both these species of disease, during life and after 
death, presents the same characters, except that the separation of 
its elements is more prompt, the white and black clots are smaller, 
and the serum is found in larger quantities in acute cliastathemie. 
The organic lesions which occasion this malady are numerous 
and various. In the tissues which are in immediate contact with 
the air we find in some places numerous ecchymoses: in others a 
putrid alteration of the blood, with partial softening and decompo¬ 
sition of the organ, which is also converted into an infectious mass 
