The chief symptoms of chill, fever, and difficulty in breathing are like as in other animals, while the results of auscultation and percussion are more satisfactory than in any other domestic animal. The dog sits on its haunches to facilitate breathing; his elbows turned out, his mouth open and his tongue protruded. Coldness of the ears and a short quick cough are usually marked symptoms.
Treatment. The general care applicable to other animals is equally demanded here. The diet should consist of mild broths, or farinaceous foods with a little gravy if necessary to render it palatable.
Bleeding from the jugular has been recommended and may be admissible at the outset of the disease in a very few appropriate cases. If costiveness exists a tablespoonful of castor oil may be given (more or less according to the size of the animal), following this up by the tartar emetic, nitre and sugar recommended for bronchitis. The poultice jacket is of great value. Mustard poultices may later be applied to the sides of the chest. Stimulants, tonics and nourishing diet may be required during convalescence, or when the disease assumes a low type.
CROUPOUS PNEUMONIA IN FOWLS.
In chickens exposure and neglect are alleged causes. Foul coops and the contrast between the warm building and cold outer air are justly blamed. Ruffled feathers, drooping head, dark colored comb and wattles, trailing wings, a disposition to gape, panting and cough are noticed. Under the wings and over the back crepitations and dulness may be detected. The patient may take a teaspoonful of castor oil, and saltpetre or iodide of potassium may be given in the drinking water. In careful doses the other remedial measures may be attempted.
Pneumonia in birds. Causes, exposure, neglect, foul coops, hot, close houses, etc. Symptoms, erect plumage, drooping head, wings, and tail, dark comb, gaping, panting, cough, crepitation. Treatment, hygienic, laxative, febrifuge.
ACUTE PLEURISY IN THE HORSE. PLEURITIS.
Causes, cold, damp, soils and exposures, as with rheumatism, youth, vigor, heavy diet, digestion, or hepatic disorder, over-exertion, perspiration and succeeding chill, wading or swimming rivers, standing in snow, salted snow, rain, sleet, snow, draughts between open doors and windows, clipping, cold sponging of legs, tuberculosis, a common cause in man and cattle is rare in horses, surface pneumonias, cancers, actinomycosis, tumors. Traumas from broken rib, penetrating intercostal wound, blows, contusions, ruptured pulmonary or intercostal abscess. Irritant (infectious) exudate suggests microbes. Symptoms, chill, reaction, partial sweats, pawing, pointing one foot, hyperthermia, hard, jarring pulse, hurried breathing, inspiration catching, pleuritic ridge, uneasy movements, hacking cough, tumors and twitching of chest muscles, tender intercostals, grunting, friction sound, subsiding with appearance of dull area below, signs of effusion, relief, dyspnœa, lifting flanks and loins, perspirations, stocking limbs, pasty swelling on sternum, effusion of same level on both sides, creaking sounds, splashing, gurgling, metallic tinkling, weakness, sinking. Signs of adhesions, compression of lung, abscess. Duration. Lesions, early formation of false membranes, pleuritic effusion, its composition, its color at different stages, dry pleurisy, sero-fibrinous, sero-fibro-purulent, hydro-pneumothorax, tubercle. Prognosis. Treatment, during the chill, warm air, clothing, drinks, injections, compresses, pilocarpin during early inflammatory stage, derivatives, dry cupping, mustard, cantharides, hot water, or air, cold applications, laxatives, calmatives, antirheumatics, alkaline agents, with bitters, diuretics, heart tonic, iodine, mercury, thoracentesis.
Causes. Pleurisy is common in all domestic animals and especially so in cold, damp, exposed localities which suffer equally from rheumatism. It occasionally extends to the fascia of the limbs, the joints, or the navicular or other trochlea as a rheumatic affection. The disease is prevalent among young and vigorous horses, four or five years old, on stimulating feeding. Here hepatic derangements and poisons, over-exertion, perspiration and succeeding chills are especially to be suspected. Plunging the limbs in ice cold water as in wading a river (Fromage), standing in snow and above all in salted snow, or facing a cold rain, sleet, or snow when perspiring or fatigued, are recognized causes. A full drink of ice cold water when freely perspiring, and followed by standing in the frosty air, or in a cold current indoors. Exposure unblanketed after clipping in winter (Field, Trasbot), and even sponging the body or legs with cold water when heated or fatigued or both. St. Cyr found that pneumonias stood to pleurisies as 3: 1, Trasbot as 10: 1, yet the latter draws attention to the fact that in cavalry horses habituated to the stable and sent out into camps in the depth of winter, the pleurisies are more numerous than pneumonias. This may suffice to show the importance of the rôle filled by cold and chill in the production of pleurisy. Yet many physicians look upon the chill as a predisposition only, while the true origin of disease is microbian. And in man a large proportion of pleurisies appear to be distinctly tuberculous. Bowditch traced 90 cases of acute pleurisy and found that 32 had tuberculosis. The objection to generalizing too largely on this for the lower animals is that the horse and dog, in which tuberculosis is rare, are by far the most common subjects of pleurisy, whilst cows which are very prone to tuberculosis show few cases of simple pleurisy. Again we find pleurisy in the horse as the result of other diseases localized in or adjacent to the pleura, and where there is nothing to indicate tuberculosis. Thus it follows pneumonia approaching the surface of the lung, cancers, actinomycosis and other tumors, and traumas—a pulmonary abscess bursting into the pleura, a broken rib scratching and lacerating the lung, a perforating wound of the intercostal space, or in cattle a sharp pointed body advancing from the reticulum toward the heart.
But the presumptive absence of the tubercle bacillus in the great majority of pleurisies in the horse does not prove the absence of all pathogenic microbes. Trasbot, who rejects the microbian theory, found that the injection of a little of the exudate into the pleural cavity of a sound horse, always determined a generalized pleurisy. Injections of distilled water with the same antiseptic precautions, made separately by himself and Laborde, had no pathogenic effect. Trasbot attributes the pleurisy vaguely, to the irritant effect of the exudate, but if it should finally be shown that this exudate contains microbes, though they may not be those of tuberculosis, the irritant action will be much more clearly explained. There are forms of pleurisy which are unquestionably the result of microbes, as in lung plague, influenza, canine distemper, glanders, tuberculosis, pneumo-enteritis, actinomycosis, and theoretically it might be supposed that in our ordinary acute pleurisies, other germs that have been lurking harmless in the system may take occasion by reason of the lowered vitality induced by a chill, or a trauma, to colonize the thoracic serosa and develop pleurisy. Under such a theory, the predisposing and microbian element would remain equally effectual, but only operative when conjoined, neither being pathogenic without the other.