Special Report on Diseases of the HorseUnited States. Bureau of Animal Industry
Science
Special Report on Diseases of the Horse
United States. Bureau of Animal Industry
Horses -- Diseases
Whether the inflamed tissue is one like the skin, lungs, or intestines,
very loose in their texture, or a tendon or bone, dense in structure,
and comparatively poor in blood vessels, the principle of the process is
the same. The effects, however, and the appearance may be widely
different. After a cut on the face or an exudation into the lungs, the
loose tissues and multiple vessels allow the proliferating cells to
obtain rich nourishment; absorption can take place readily, and the part
regains its normal condition entirely, while a bruise at the heel or at
the withers finds a dense, inextensible tissue where the multiplying
elements and exuded fluids choke up all communication, and the parts die
(necrose) from want of blood and cause a serious quittor, or fistula.
This effect of structure of a part on the same process shows the
importance of a perfect knowledge in the study of a local trouble, and
the indispensable part which such knowledge plays in judging of the
gravity of an inflammatory disease, and in formulating a prognosis or
opinion of the final termination of it. It is this which allows the
veterinarian, through his knowledge of the intimate structure of a part
and the relations of its elements, to judge of the severity of a
disease, and to prescribe different modes of treatment in two animals
for troubles which, to the less experienced observer, appear to be
absolutely identical.
_Termination of inflammation._--Like congestion, inflammation may
terminate by resolution. In this case the exuded lymph undergoes
chemical change, and the products are absorbed and carried off by the
blood vessels and lymphatics, to be thrown out of the body by the
kidneys, liver, the glands of the skin, and the other excretory organs.
The cells, which have wandered into the neighboring tissues from the
blood vessels, gradually disappear or become transformed into fixed
cells. Those which are the result of the tissue cells, wakened into
active life, follow the same course. The vessels themselves contract,
and, having resumed their normal caliber, the part apparently reassumes
its normal condition; but it is always weakened, and a new inflammation
is more liable to reappear in a previously inflamed part than in a sound
one. The alternate termination is necrosis, or mortification. If the
necrosis, or death of a part, is gradual, by small stages, each cell
losing its vitality after the other in more or less rapid succession, it
takes the name of ulceration. If it occurs in a considerable part at
once, it is called gangrene. If this death of the tissues occurs deep in
the organism, and the destroyed elements and proliferated and dead cells
are inclosed in a cavity, the result of the process is called an
abscess. When it occurs on a surface, it is an ulcer, and an abscess by
breaking on the exterior becomes then also an ulcer. Proliferating and
dying cells, and the fluid which exudes from an ulcerating surface and
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