liROXCHITIS IN THE HORSE. 
175 
Frequently a false membrane, organized to a considerable 
degTee, lines the bronchial passages, under which there exists 
inflammation of the intensest kind, and penetrating into the 
parenchyma of the lungs. 
Epidemic, —Like every other inflammation of the respiratory 
passages bronchitis is clearly epidemic. There is a disposition 
to inflammation in the respiratory apparatus generally, but it 
depends on some unknown atmospheric influence whether this 
shall take on the form of catarrh, bronchitis, or pneumonia. I 
am not, however, prepared to say that it is contagious ; at least I 
never saw a case in which I had reason to suppose that the dis¬ 
ease had this origin. 
Treatment. —Here again your first step will be to bleed; and 
here too wall be the paramount necessity of your personal attend¬ 
ance while the animal is bled. This is a disease of a mucous,— 
an extended mucous surface; and while our measures must be 
prompt, there is a tendency to debility which w^e should never 
forget. Although I have sometimes seen the horse distressed 
quite to the extent which Mr. Charles Percivall describes, yet 
he wmuld not bear the loss of four pounds of blood without 
fainting. You will order, or you will take no determinate quan¬ 
tity, but you will bleed until the pulse falters, and the animal 
staggers, and in a minute or two would fall. This may pro¬ 
bably effect your object; if it does not, it is possible that you 
may not have a second opportunity. 
You will be cautious in the administration of a purgative, for 
the reasons that I have again and again stated ; but if the bowels 
are evidently constipated, you must give the small doses of aloes 
with the febrifuge medicine, and promote their speedy action by 
injections, so that a small quantity may suffice. 
The febrifuge medicine so often recommended must be ad¬ 
ministered here. Our’s seems to be as yet a small pharmaco¬ 
poeia. We shall enlarge it by-and-by, when we have to speak of 
other systems and other diseases; and, in the mean time, if we 
have that which will generally effect our purpose, we have all that 
we can desire. 
Some practitioners use the white hellebore. I have already 
explained my reasons for giving the preference to digitalis, except 
we have the horse in our own infirmary, and can cautiously and 
hourly watch the effect of the drug. Mr. Percivall relates a very 
interesting and instructive case. One of his troop horses had 
bronchitis; his respirations reckoned upw’ards of a hundred per 
minute, he puffed hard at the nostrils, and heaved laboriously 
and painfully with his flanks; and his countenance betrayed ex¬ 
treme inward oppression. He w'as bled, and, in the course of 
