PSEUDOMEMBRANOUS (CROUPOUS) PHARYNGITIS.
False membranes not due to a common microbian cause. Accessory causes in solipeds; caustics, smoke infection. Lesions: Congestion, necrosis; croupous exudate, extending to patches on bowels and bronchia; kidney infarctions; blood altered. Symptoms: fever, dyspnœa, mucous rattle in throat, swelling, painful, difficult deglutition, yellow or cyanotic mucosæ, pinched face, weakness, prostration. Duration. Diagnosis. Treatment, as for catarrhal pharyngitis with antiseptics by inhalation and electuary. Iron.
Pharyngites attended by the formation of false membranes are met with in all the domestic animals and may be grouped together as a special class. The collection of these in one group, however, must not be taken to imply that all of these, as met with in the different animals have the same pathology, and are due to one invariable cause. Above all it must not be inferred that they are identical with the malignant diphtheria of the human being. The bacillus diphtheriæ hominis isolated by Klebs in 1883, and proved pathogenic by Löffler in 1884, has not been successfully inoculated upon any of the larger domestic animals, and has not been found in any of the casual pseudomembranous pharyngitis of these animals. The common feature of the group is to be found in the formation of the false membrane, and the fact that a given disease is placed in the group must not be held to apply to any special character, of microbian origin, nor communicability by infection.