Definition. Inflammation of the mucous membrane which lines the bronchia. It is the counterpart of coryza and laryngitis, being but the inflammation of another portion of the same mucous membrane which lines the whole respiratory track. That portion of this mucous membrane which lines the trachea is rarely or never the exclusive seat of inflammation, so that in case of its being implicated we do not speak of the case as one of tracheitis but as laryngitis or bronchitis, according as the throat or bronchia form the seat of active inflammatory action.
The bronchial mucous membrane is often inflamed in influenza, strangles, contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle, distemper in dogs, and parasitic diseases of the lungs, but the following remarks will be confined to the simple inflammatory affection. It appears as an acute and a chronic affection.
HORSE. ACUTE BRONCHITIS.
This is more frequent in the horse than in other animals, and especially so in young animals when newly stabled or put in training.
Causes. These are the same as those of catarrh and sore throat. It is but the continuation of the same mucous membrane which is affected in all alike, and the same atmospheric changes, hot stables, noxious inhalations and exposures to cold and wet will induce this disease rather than the others when the bronchial mucous membrane is more predisposed. Bronchitis often supervenes upon sore throat, by the extension of the inflammation downward into the chest. Chilling of the surface by exposure to cold, drenching rains, is a frequent cause, by reason of the intimate sympathy existing between the skin and the mucous membrane. For the same reason certain conditions of the skin will predispose, thus a long, thick coat which keeps the animal constantly drenched with sweat and the skin relaxed and sensitive. Williams draws attention to the frequency and severity of bronchitis in both horses and cattle conveyed by sea during stormy weather, and especially when the hatches had to be fastened down. Such an experience combines in one the evils of an overheated stall, a sudden transition often to extreme cold, a lowering of the vitality of the whole system by the circulation of non-ærated blood, a systemic poisoning by the retention of the waste organic products that would otherwise have been eliminated, and the special weakening of the lung tissue by congestion of the whole pulmonic circulation.
But the development of bronchitis and broncho-pneumonia is the least fatal result. The statistics of our European cattle traffic are rich in the examples of absolute suffocation of cargoes in transit to Europe. The following from Report of U. S. Treasury Cattle Commission is illustrative:
“Dr. Thayer reports the case of a steamer from Boston to Liverpool, with 400 cattle on board, which encountered a storm and came through it with only one animal surviving. Mr. Toffey, of Jersey City, lost 30 head out of a cargo of 300 by suffocation in 1880. This happened, he informs us, on a calm sea on a southern route with a temperature about 90° F., and the wind astern and light so as just to keep pace with the ship. The air on board the ship became perfectly stagnant, and there was no means of establishing an artificial current. A still more disastrous experience befell the steamer Thanemore, Captain Sibthorp, of the William Johnson & Co. line. This vessel left Baltimore with 565 cattle on board, of which 228 perished by suffocation before she reached Cape Henry.”
Among animals that survive such treatment the susceptibility to lung disease including even the contagious forms like tuberculosis is enormously enhanced.
EFFECTS OF MODERATELY VITIATED AIR.
“When air only moderately vitiated is breathed continuously for a greater length of time the results are still very injurious, and in the front rank of diseases so caused stand pulmonary consumption, and other destructive affections of the lungs. Perhaps no better example of this can be given than that of the monkey houses of the Zoological Gardens of London and Paris. While these houses were small and ill-ventilated the monkeys died in large numbers from pulmonary consumption, but after they had been enlarged and better ventilated the mortality from this cause nearly ceased. (Arnott.)”