290 iMR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
flaccid, compressed, not one-fourth of their usual size, immersed 
in the fluid, and rendered incapable of expanding by its 
pressure. 
Treatment. —Here, as in pneumonia, you should bleed promptly 
and copiously. Next, and of great importance, aperient medicine 
should be administered—that, the effect of which is so desirable, 
but w'hich you do not dare to give when the mucous membrane 
of the respiratory passages is the seat of disease. Here you 
have to do wath a serous membrane, and there is less sympathy 
with the mucous membranes of either cavity. Tw-o drachms of 
aloes may be given in the usual fever medicine, and repeated 
morning and night until the dung becomes pultaceous, w'hen it 
will always be prudent to stop. The sedative medicine would be 
that which has been recommended in pneumonia, and in the same 
doses. Next should follow a blister on the chest and sides— 
advisable, we maintained, in pneumonia; there far preferable to 
setons; and here more particularly so; for we can bring it almost 
into contact with the inflamed surface, and extend it over the 
whole of that surface. An airy, but a comfortable box, is like¬ 
wise even more necessary than in pneumonia, and the practice 
of exposure uncovered to the cold, even more absurd and de¬ 
structive. The blood, repelled from the skin by the contractile, 
depressing, influence of the cold, would rush with fatal impetus 
to the neighbouring membrane, to w'hich it was before danger¬ 
ously determined. Warm and comfortable clothing cannot be 
dispensed with in pleurisy. 
Treatment during Convalescence .—I was loath to allow you 
even the slightest tonic in the state of convalescence after pneu¬ 
monia. I urged you to consider the matter w’ell before you ran 
the risk of kindling the fire afresh. The after treatment of pleu¬ 
risy, however, is a somewhat different thing. You have in most 
acute cases that which is usually a remedial effort of nature, 
effusion—an unloading of the congested vessels ; but the fluid 
is here poured into a cavity in w'hich it must not remain—in 
which a small quantity of it will produce embarrassment of 
breathing, and disorganization of the membrane on wdiich it rests, 
and lay the foundation for injurious deposit and adhesion. You 
have not only to restore the general health of the animal, which 
you might be content to take some time in doing, because you 
would thus be doing it more safely in pneumonia; but you have 
to rouse the absorbents to immediate action, and to get rid of 
this extraneous fluid as soon as you can, and therefore I would 
allow you, or I would urge you, to leave off your sedative me¬ 
dicines sooner, and to substitute for them diuretics. The common 
turpentine is as good as any, made into a ball with linseed meal, 
