This most painful disease, like those of the lungs generally, visits valuable horses during the years when they are most esteemed. The unbroken colt is seldom attacked, and the aged animal is, to an almost equal degree, exempt. The young steed, newly stabled, is liable; and that liability remains up to the sixth year, when it gradually subsides. It is a terrible affliction. Its anguish is localized and concentrated. It is inflammation of the fine, glistening membrane covering the lungs and lining the inside of the chest. At every inspiration and at every expiration the inflamed surfaces must move upon each other. To breathe is the primary necessity of the creature's life. It cannot exist and refuse to inflate the lungs; yet is existence purchased at a price worth many years of happiness. The inflamed surfaces cannot remain quiet; yet, to render the condition of motion the more acute, inflammation stops the secretion, which, during health, smoothed and lubricated the passage of the membranes. During disease, the pleura is swollen, rough, and dry; it grates or scratches as one surface is, by the necessity to breathe, dragged over the other.
Membranes are sensitive in disease in proportion to the fineness of their structure, and to their insensibility during health. The pleura belongs to what are termed serous membranes. These line closed cavities; as the chest, the abdomen, and the joints. Of the existence of none of these are we conscious while they are free from disease; but, let the inflammation set in, and it would be difficult to decide which of them is the most painful. Fortunately, however, pleurisy, when concentrated or singly present, terminates generally by the second day.
The symptoms, therefore, are quickly developed. The violence on their first appearance has been so great, that an attack of pleurisy has been mistaken for a fit of spasmodic colic. A little care will guard against so fatal an error. The pulse, in colic, is always natural at the commencement, and the fits, when they first occur, are invariably of short duration. In pleurisy, the vessel strikes the fingers; the blow is strong, and the artery is thin; the pain is continuous; the agony never remits or ceases; the horse never feeds; the body is hot, and indicates the fire within; the feet are icy cold; the muscles are frequently corrugated in patches, and partial perspirations break forth upon the surface; a cough is often, not invariably, present; it is always suppressed and dry; it suggests no notion that the intent is to clear the throat; the inclination to cough, from the larynx sympathizing with the lungs, is great; the feeling cannot be entirely mastered,—but the horse is fearful of indulging an impulse, which would violently shake the inflamed chest. The ear, placed against the ribs, detects a grating sound, and the respiratory murmur is less clear than usual. Pressure made on the free interspaces between the ribs sometimes deprives the animal almost of consciousness; it shrinks, and were the torture continued, it would fall. At other times anguish maddens even timidity,—the foot is lifted or the teeth are displayed, to repel the tormentor. When left alone, the head is frequently turned toward the side, with a piteous stare of wonder and inquiry. Altogether the animal is, as it were, inspirited by the disorder.
A HORSE SUFFERING UNDER PLEURISY.
The fore foot is scarcely ever quiet; it constantly paws, which action, in the horse, always expresses impatience or pain. The breathing, of course, is peculiar; a full inspiration the animal dare not take. Before inhalation is half completed the ribs fly backward. However, the backward action has hardly been accomplished before anguish once more compels a change; thus the breathing, to a looker-on, appears short, jerking, quick, and always imperfect.
The treatment must be active, as it is likely to be short. At the first outbreak, abstract enough blood to ease the horse, but take no more; place the sufferer in a cool, loose box; put woolen bandages upon all the legs, but leave the body unclothed; give, every quarter of an hour, a scruple of tincture of aconite in a wineglass of warm water. Feel the pulse before each dose; when that has softened, discontinue the aconite; every second hour then administer one ounce of sulphuric ether and of tincture of opium in a tumbler of cold water, to dispel any congestion that may lurk about the pleura, and also to lend smoothness or fullness to the pulse.
Pursue these measures for the first day and night. On no account be tempted to bleed a second time, for fear of that weakness which generates hydrothorax. When the pulse and pain are amended, should the cough remain, introduce the steaming apparatus twice described under the headings of the two previous articles. The bowels are generally costive; be not alarmed; with the departure of the disorder they will relax. Place lukewarm water within the easy reach of the horse; but before the symptoms abate, introduce nothing of a more stimulating nature. When the disorder lessens, hay-tea may be allowed; as improvement increases, the diet may be gradually augmented after the manner described, when considering the treatment of pneumonia. Such care is essential, because any violent disorder in a confined part of the body has a tendency to involve other structures, and the danger of this increases as the inflammation is removed from the surface.
The tranquilizing of the respiration, the softness of the pulse and the return of the appetite will announce the departure of pleurisy. When these longed-for indications are remarked, blister the throat and chest; should any seeds of the malady appear to be not entirely removed, repeat the blister to the throat and chest. Should the bowels not be relieved, throw up copious enemas of blood-warm gruel; nothing more must be attempted. Aloes or salts are poisons during pleurisy; wait patiently, and in time the establishment of health will restore all the natural functions, or if they are very confined, a bundle or two of cut grass may be presented with the usual food.