The prognosis is grave.
One of the most successful methods of treatment consists in free bleeding. In a great majority of cases this causes the symptoms to abate as though by enchantment. Cutaneous stimulation by mustard and similar irritants, as well as ablutions of cold water, are useful. The animal should be placed in a very airy spot.
SIMPLE PNEUMONIA.
History. Veterinary surgeons have long been divided in opinion on the question whether simple pneumonia occurs in animals of the bovine species. Whilst some affirm it, others think that all lesions of the lung in the ox, apart from pneumonia due to foreign bodies, should be regarded as of the nature of peripneumonia.
Some ten years ago two veterinary surgeons of the department of the Aisne, Coulon and Ollivier, practising in a district where peripneumonia rages, made some extremely interesting observations on pneumonia in the ox. Their object was to distinguish between contagious peripneumonia and simple pneumonia during life, simple pneumonia having formerly been regarded as a non-contagious peripneumonia. Despite the rather unfavourable conditions in which ordinary practitioners are frequently placed, these gentlemen performed a work of great value. The facts which point to the occurrence of simple pneumonia are as follows:—
The disease is not contagious. One may allow affected animals to mix with normal subjects without the disease being communicated. Pulmonary exudate from cases of simple pneumonia can be injected into the dewlap and hind quarters of young and adult animals, without pathological results.
The lesions and course of simple pneumonia entirely differ from those of peripneumonia.
Causation. Simple pneumonia is not common, and only occurs quite exceptionally in fat stock, or in milch cows kept in stables at a regular temperature, as in the north of France and near Paris.
It occurs most commonly in working animals, which are exposed to variations in temperature and to chills. By causing vascular disturbance, chill favours microbic infection and visceral inflammation. Trasbot has described the case of an ox which, after having worked hard, and whilst freely sweating, was left exposed to the wind under a shed for about three hours. This animal contracted unilateral pneumonia the following day.
Coulon and Ollivier have seen the disease in animals living in damp, low-lying valleys, or valleys exposed to the north wind, which are exposed in consequence to great variations in temperature.