PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.
This disease often breaks out among pigs as well as horses, cattle, and sheep, and commits great devastation. We shall quote some accounts of its progress, treatment, and post-mortem appearances given by English and foreign veterinarians, by whom it is classed under the head of
EPIDEMICS.
M. Saussol narrates that during the summer of 1821 nearly all the swine in the neighborhood of Mazamet were attacked by a violent and mortal disease that spared neither age nor sex, fat nor lean. He rates its ravages at about one-fifth of every four hundred patients.
The first symptoms were inappetency, thirst, dullness, groaning, and seeking of moist places; then followed hardness of the belly, heat of the skin, constipation, diminution of the urine, difficulty of respiration, heaving of the flanks, and short cough; the eyes were full of tears, and the mucous membranes inflamed. All these symptoms came on in the course of twelve hours. If the disease continued, the succeeding symptoms were still more alarming; the animals began to stagger about, the limbs were stretched out in an unnatural position, rattling in the throat came on, they supported themselves against the wall, and only fell to die a few minutes afterwards. Death usually came about the third day, and was in some cases preceded by convulsions of the face and extremities.
Treatment.—Copious bleedings from the sacro-coccygean arteries and veins, or, if these did not yield blood enough, amputation of the tail, hot baths, a seton covered with blistering ointment inserted in the chest, camphorated and laxative drenches, and a decoction of borage, mallows, and lettuces, slightly acidulated, to drink.
Causes.—Exposure to the heat of the sun, want of water, feeding on dry plants; returning home in the evening exhausted, receiving a hearty feed, and being then shut up in ill-ventilated styes without drink until morning.
Preventive treatment.—Troughs of acidulated nitrated water placed in the styes and frequently renewed; non-exposure to the heat of the day, means of bathing, bleeding, cleanliness, and ventilation; moderate feeding, and gentle exercise after the sun had set. These precautionary measures, M. Saussol says, arrested the progress of the disease.
Post-mortem appearances.—The thoracic cavity was filled with bloody limpid fluid; the lungs much inflamed; the pleura thickened, inflamed, and injected; the diaphragm covered with black patches of the size of a shilling; the mucous coat of the intestines
