THE SYMPTOMS OF PLEURISY. 
351 
. JB ^ | * * 
concentrated; the respiratory murmur feeble, sometimes accom¬ 
panied by a slight grating in the superior region of the chest; 
resonance always distinct. The increased sensibility of the walls 
of the thorax rendered evident by tapping or pressure on the 
sides. The symptoms resembling those of slight colic, and the 
shiverings last only ten or fifteen hours; the others continue from 
twenty-four to forty hours, when the pleurisy terminates in deli¬ 
tescence or deposition. 
B. Delitescence *.—This may be promptly obtained by placing 
the animal in a condition opposite to that which produced the 
disease. It is known by the prompt and regular diminution of 
all the symptoms, and by a return to the natural state of all the 
functions, 
C. Depositions—False Membranes .—When the quantity of 
liquid effused is small, and no gas mingles with it, it is difficult 
to ascertain its existence in the larger animals. In smaller ani¬ 
mals, the absence of the respiratory murmur, and the grating 
sound being more easily detected at the inferior region of the 
chest, render the effusion probable; and if gaseous products are 
accidently mingled with the liquid, a slight gurgling noise will 
indicate its presence in the lower part of the chest. In most 
small animals, as in the dog, the effusion may be evidently re¬ 
cognised, by first exploring the lower region of the chest, and 
then placing the animal on its back, and exploring the superior 
region, which is now become the lower. If in the first position 
there was absence of respiratory murmur, and gurgling and 
grating were heard on the lower side, and on reversing the ani¬ 
mal these peculiar sounds were likewise reversed, the case 
would be sufficiently plain, for the fluid would always descend 
by its specific gravity, and the lungs w ould float on its surface. 
If the quantity of fluid is considerable, or exceeds eight or ten 
pounds, the grating and the absence of the respiratory murmur, 
and not preceded by a crepitating wheezing (rale) in the inferior 
portion of the breast, and the resonance, and the loudness of 
the murmur in the superior part, would render the existence 
of effusion probable. 
The accumulation of the effusion is know n by the continuance 
of these results: the want of the respiratory murmur will gra¬ 
dually spread up the. side, and become more circumscribed, and 
stronger at the superior part of the chest, and a remarkable 
rubbing noise w ill begin to be heard about the middle of the 
* Delitescence , among French pathologists, usually designates the sudden 
disappearance of inflammatory action, in opposition to the slow process of 
resolution. M. Delafond, however, seems to affix to delitescence the 
meaning of resolution, while of resolution he gives a very different account. 
