Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 4 (of 5)Law, James
Science
Text book of veterinary medicine, Volume 4 (of 5)
Law, James
Veterinary medicine
Mild _catarrhal symptoms of the nose and throat_ are usually present,
the discharge being at first serous and later muco-purulent. As a rule
this is complicated with more or less bronchitis, but this does not
indicate anything serious. Acceleration of the breathing, sneezing, and
cough are present. Cough may be at first nervous, husky and paroxysmal,
but later as the discharge is established it assumes a looser, mucous
character. It is liable to be roused by excitement, by drinking cold
water, by inhalation of dust, or by giving medicine. In connection with
these symptoms there are some indications that the digestive organs are
involved. The pharyngeal and submaxillary glands may be swollen and
tender. If the subject has been seized just after a full meal, there may
be slight tympany, and in any case, the fæces are passed in small balls,
a few at a time, hard and with a baked or glistening surface. These may
have an unusually strong or heavy odor, and laxatives are liable to act
with dangerous energy. The urine is scanty and high colored, sometimes
icteric.
In such mild attacks, which constitute the majority, improvement may be
noted as early as the fourth day, and a prompt recovery follows.
With extensive _thoracic lesions_, the symptoms are much more severe and
the danger greatly enhanced. These may occur in any patient, but there
appears to be a special predisposition in the young and still very
susceptible animals, in those crowded together in close, badly aired
buildings, in the overworked, poorly fed or in any way debilitated
subject, and in horses that have been especially excited and exposed, as
by railway travel.
In exceptional cases _congestion of the lungs_ may be so acute as to
lead to speedy death, and the objective symptoms do not differ greatly
from those of ordinary cases of this condition, if we except the very
high temperature in influenza, associated as it is with the fact of the
epizoötic prevalence of the disease.
In _pneumonic_ cases the lesions are usually double and have a tendency
to develop toward the lower borders of the lungs, just behind the elbow
or farther back, and less frequently in the centre of the organ. It may
be impossible to detect crepitation, but sounds of distant organs (heart
beats, bronchial blowing, intestinal rumbling) are heard with unwonted
clearness over the consolidated parts. A mucous râle can usually be
detected behind the shoulder blade, along the line of the larger
bronchia. Percussion sounds may be indefinite, as the area of
consolidated lung is usually small in ratio with the hyperthermia. The
area of flatness in ordinary fibrinous pneumonia is usually much greater
with a high fever, and if the lesions are on one side only, right or
left, it is still more suggestive. The crepitation too in pneumonia is
significant. When the pulmonary lesions are extensive by reason of
œdema, a marked infiltration may often be noted on the lower surface of
the trunk or in the limbs as well.
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