The patients are subject to intense dyspnœa, appear about to suffocate, and during the efforts then made the false membranes are discharged in the form of half-organised layers, or, on the other hand, in branched masses, resembling twigs.
The dyspnœa at once ceases. Despite the development of these false membranes in the bronchi, no alarming symptoms are produced, which is explained by the fact of the false membranes being adherent only to the inner surface of the principal conduits, without closing or even markedly obstructing them or the smaller passages leading to the pulmonary alveoli. When, however, they are displaced, violent reflex spasms are produced as soon as the fragments approach the larynx.
Diagnosis. The diagnosis rests entirely on examination of the expectorated material.
So far as the prognosis is concerned, it is less grave than might be supposed from the symptoms. The gravity arises from the fact that this disease has a certain tendency to become chronic.
Treatment scarcely differs from that of ordinary bronchitis. Tar, creosote in doses of 2½ to 5 drachms given in oil; terpine in doses of ½ to ¾ drachms per day can be recommended. Iodide of potassium also has certain advantages.
VERMINOUS BRONCHITIS IN SHEEP AND CATTLE (HUSK, HOOSE, ETC.).
Lambs, young sheep, and calves sometimes suffer severely from infestation with lung worms, which set up great irritation in the bronchial passages, leading to chronic bronchitis. The animals show frequent attacks of paroxysmal coughing, during which some of the parasites may be expelled. The irritation produced causes serious loss of condition, and if not alleviated may lead to death. The parasite of the sheep is known as Strongylus filaria (sheep lungworm), that of the calf Strongylus micrurus. The worms are from 2 to 4 inches long, whitish in colour, and of the diameter of a hat-pin.
Treatment. According to generally accepted views among veterinarians and zoologists, it is a comparatively simple matter to kill worms in the bronchial tubes, and a number of cases of the disease are reported in literature which are alleged to have been cured. These views, however, are open to very serious doubt.
Neumann (1892b, pp. 590, 591, 593, 594) summarises the subject of treatment as follows:—
Two different procedures in treatment are pursued. In one, substances are passed into the digestive canal, which, being diffused in the blood, are believed to be capable of attacking the worms in the bronchial tubes. With this view, the picrate of potash (0·20 to 0·40 gram per head) is given, dissolved in thin gruel or mucilage; creosote; oil of turpentine; a mixture of equal parts of oil of turpentine and tincture of camphor—a teaspoonful every day to each lamb in a mucilaginous fluid; a mixture of creosote 120 grams, spirits of wine 500 grams, and water 700 grams—an ordinary spoonful every day to each animal; or creosote 60 grams, benzine 300 grams, water 2 litres—an ordinary spoonful given every day for eight days to each sheep. Hall states he has successfully employed prussic acid in ten-drop doses, morning and evening.