PROFESSOR SIMONDS’ LECTURE. 
511 
treat upon the epizootic. And first he quarrelled with the nomen¬ 
clature, contending that the term “ pleuro-pneumonia” conveyed a 
wrong idea as to the part principally and primarily affected, in¬ 
asmuch as it gave us to understand that disease of the pleura pre¬ 
dominated over that of the lung, the word pleuro being placed first 
in the compound term. According to his (Professor Simonds’) 
notions, it would have been more correct to designate it “ pneumo¬ 
pleuritis,” the lung being the earliest and principal part affected. 
Now I have always been in the habit, and I think most others 
have also, when explaining the meaning of this and other com¬ 
pound words, of looking upon the first as having an adjective 
sense, and upon the second as the substantive, or most important 
of the two: the first qualifying, as it were, the latter. The word 
pleuro-pneumonia, in my opinion, indicates that the disease of the 
lung precedes and predominates greatly over that of the pleura, 
and vice versa ; and Dr. Watson, in his Lectures, gives the same 
explanation of the terms. Now, if this be correct, then Professor 
Simonds, by giving the disease a fresh “ christening ,” if I may be 
allowed the expression, has fallen into the self-same error he so 
carefully endeavoured to guard others against. This, after all, is 
a matter of little moment, as far as the treatment of the disease is 
concerned : he may truly say, “ What’s in a name ?” 
But that which gave me no little surprise in his lecture, and to 
which my principal object in making these remarks is to allude, 
was an assertion he made, to the effect that the disease was not of 
an inflammatory character at all, but was dropsy of the lung. Now, 
after reversing the order of the two words composing the term 
pleuro-pneumonia, and still retaining the Greek termination mg, 
which indicates inflammation, I must confess I was not prepared to 
meet with such strange anomalies of nomenclature. 
As to the question of dropsy, had there ever been discovered by 
post-mortem examinations merely effusion of serum into the sub¬ 
stance of the lung and into the cavity of the pleura, with the 
absence of inflammatory symptoms during life, then a probability 
might have existed in the mind of the veterinarian of the disease 
being of a dropsical nature ; but, unfortunately for the Professor’s 
theory, facts presented to the notice both during life and after 
death, prove a decidedly inflammatory action. I do not mean to 
assert that dropsy cannot result from previous inflammation; that 
would be absurd. 
I never yet made a post-mortem examination (and I have made 
many in this disease), where I did not observe most unequivocal 
appearances of previous inflammation, such as the marble-like 
arrangement of thick lymph occupying the interlobular spaces of 
the lung, the substance of the lung itself presenting all the various 
appearances and stages of hepatization, and frequently abscesses; 
