PNEUMONIA IN CATTLE. 
305 
they indicate some metastasis, or possible metastasis, of inflam¬ 
mation. 
The symptoms of an approaching fatal termination of the 
disease are a little but not very different from what they are in 
the horse ; the quick, weak, intermittent pulse ; stupor ; insen¬ 
sibility of the skin; foetid breath; foetid discharge from the 
mouth and nostrils, and more from the mouth than in the horse. 
The disease is sometimes fatal before the termination of the 
second day, although occasionally the animal lingers on to the 
seventh or eighth day. 
The appearances after death are thus far different, that pneu¬ 
monia becomes oftener complicated with pleurisy than in the 
horse; effusion into the chest is oftener found, and in larger 
quantity. The liver has often acquired an extraordinary size, 
but the intestines comparatively seldom exhibit much appearance 
of inflammation. In some cases the membranes of the intestines 
are even less injected than in their natural state. 
After apparent cure, there is often a chronic inflammation of 
the lungs, or more probably chronic bronchitis, which continues 
for five or six weeks, and at length destroys the animal, of which 
I shall say more hereafter. 
Auscultation .—The exploration of the chest is not so well 
understood here, and I believe practised by very few ; but the 
time will come, when here too it will receive the attention which 
it deserves. The respiratory murmur is not so loud in the ox as 
in the horse. The walls of the thorax are thicker, the integu¬ 
ment is thicker, and there is more interposed adipose membrane ; 
but the sound is sufficiently distinct for our purpose, and the 
changes which it undergoes will afford us very useful indications. 
There is one thing, however, against which we must be on our 
guard. I have observed again and again that the subcutaneous 
cellular membrane in these animals strangely sympathizes with 
every acute disease, and that there is often a peculiar crackling 
noise, rarely observed in the horse, and not only evident wffien 
the back or loins are pressed upon, or when the animal moves, 
but in every act of respiration. Something of the kind is heard 
while the beast ruminates ; it is most distinguishable about the 
lower part of the chest. It somewhat resembles the gurgling of 
a bottle. This is referiible to one of the stomachs. We must 
be careful that we do not confound the crepitating sound of the 
subcutaneous texture with that of the lungs during pneumonia, 
nor the gurgling in the rumen or reticulum with that of effusion 
into the chest, or the existence of abscess in the substance of the 
lungs. 
Treatment .—There must be the same promptitude and decision. 
