The first marked sign of improvement, during pneumonia, is the animal lying down. When this wished-for sight is before your eyes, do not enter to disturb the prostrate horse. It has, under disease, stood for several days. Its limbs must ache and its feet feel sore: make no noise, therefore. Respect the repose of the sufferer, and be grateful that your horse, probably, has escaped from danger.
If, subsequent to recovery, the restoration to perfect health is not so rapid as you could desire, be very particular about the feeding. At the same time apply a strong blister upon the front of the throat, down to the chest and between the legs. That blister having worn itself out, apply another upon the sides of the throat and the upper part of the ribs; but respect the sides of the thorax; because the animal rests on these parts, and, during recovery, rest is of more value than medicine. Nothing, therefore, should be permitted that is likely to prevent so beneficial a state from being indulged in. Abjure all purgatives—these favorite potions are too debilitating for pneumonia; forbid all mashes; nature, as she permits recovery, will, at her own time, relieve the body; adhere to the treatment which has been laid down; permit no tonics; care and good food are the best restoratives. But, above all things, be certain the health is thoroughly recovered before the horse, which has been seriously ill, is again compelled to labor.
ADHESION 1. THE PLEURA PULMONALIS UNITED BY DISEASE TO THE PLEURA COSTALIS.
a a. The pleura pulmonalis, or the natural covering of the lung.
b b. The pleura costalis, or the lining membrane of the chest.
c. The false adhesion, fixing the lung and preventing its full expansion.
d. The divided surface of the lung.
HEPATIZATION 2. OR THE LUNG BY DISEASE
CONVERTED INTO A SUBSTANCE RESEMBLING LIVER.
Several states are mentioned as the consequence of pneumonia. Adhesion of the lung to the covering of the thorax is alluded to as one result of this disease; but before adhesion could take place, inflammation must have existed in the pleura, which lines the interior of the chest and envelops the lung itself; consequently, pleurisy must have been present before the pleura could be sufficiently inflamed for adhesion to ensue. The other condition is the result of congestion; the tubes and vessels alike are clogged, the lung is converted from its soft and spongy natural texture to a firm and solid substance resembling liver. But congestion is not pneumonia, neither is a solid state of the bronchial tubes by any means good evidence that pneumonia has provoked the morbid alteration.
Now, in conclusion, we must answer the important inquiry,—what is the cause of this affliction? Poverty, without dependence, inherits few disorders. Nature, in mercy, spares the peasant those visitations which are heaped upon the nobleman. To what, then, shall we attribute the ailment of a life so entirely in possession of another as that of the horse? Is it untruth to point to that which in ordinary language passes for the master's thoughtlessness? The creature is often worked, not to the point of fatigue, but is goaded to the possibility of exhaustion; fed upon the cheapest sustenance, and lodged according to the proprietor's convenience; made subservient to the whims of vanity, and forced to conform to the habits or the caprices of fashion; now, waiting patiently in the storm; then, hurried along the dusty roads through the parching heat; now, stopped during a long journey and expected hastily to consume the provender which shall support life the remainder of the distance: treatment like this will provoke more acute evils than pneumonia. The last disorder is of too dull a type to be begotten by so harsh a parent.
The horse which is pampered, or has much to eat and little work to do; the creature which for days may stagnate in the stable and then be suddenly brought forth to extraordinary exertion; the horse whose owner is capricious; the animal whose work is uncertain; the quadruped which now is idle, and now is required to make good the lost time,—is the living being prepared to exhibit any slow disorder—to consume itself with the disease which an existence, properly treated, would possess the energy to resist.
Is it strange, that a creature doomed to so much and such deep subserviency, occasionally fails, even when possessed by what men call the best of masters? Is it just reason for wonder, that flesh occasionally rebels against the treatment which human ignorance subjects it to? Were the horse not a very hardy animal, were not the life implanted as firmly as the frame is set, it would not survive a tithe part of the usage it now endures, and, notwithstanding, continues to live on and to obey.