Inflammation of the lungs : pneumonia, or pneumonitis / [Anon].

  • Bracy Clark
Date:
[1838]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inflammation of the lungs : pneumonia, or pneumonitis / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be kept well anointed with resinous digestive. They should, however, be inserted with as little suffering to the animal as possible, or they may do harm instead of good. To aid these dispositions, the stable should be made agreeably warm, thereby keeping the blood in the skin, and exterior parts, and retaining it there, to the great relief of the interior organs, being aired by its loftiness, as we havestated, and with no partial thorough drafts or wind-holes. As to Clothing, a thin blanket, or light rug for the body is all that is necessary to that part, many hot rugs may rather distress than do good. This covering may be supported in its place by a loose girth, if blisters have been used, or, which is better, by straps or ties beneath. The head and neck may also be covered with a light sheet of any kind, or hood properly formed to fit. Warm Drinks, or diluent beverages, or very thin gruel, may also be resorted to copiously, with the best effects; placed in a bucket set in the manger, by night and by day, these as the bran mashes should be assiduously supplied fresh and fresh, and not in very large quantities at a time, and then left to get sour and disgusting. And if they should refuse these things warm, as many will, let them be administered nearly, or quite cold, rather than lose their grateful and beneficial effects; these diluents being of great consequence in diluting and cooling the blood, and the system generally. Or of late there has been assiduously propagated a doctrine of treating these cases by a cold exposure, even to the turning out of the animals into the open air in cold frosty weather. We do not certainly from our own experience and practice, know what would be the precise result of such doings, but reports from those who have seen it are not very favourable; and we further know also that the plans here laid down, have been nearly always attended with singularly favourable results, that it appears to us, whilst such continues to be the case, as strange that such wild propositions should be recommended or resorted to. It may be well just to say, tire above diluents, or dietetic beverages, are not to be forced upon the horse if he refuse them, or only after extreme fasting a single horn-full or so, as the stomach being perhaps in too weak a state to digest them, they would only create distress and nausea; and above all strong oatmeal gruel, which would reproduce the inflammatory symp- toms as much nearly, as the giving so much oats. Emetic tartar, or tartarized antimony, is often proposed as a suitable sudorific on these occasions, and with a greater show of reason. Its effects however, upon the horse are very problematical, and derived perhaps entirely from its well known effects on the human body. In our early days at the veterinary college, we took considerable pains to ascertain its precise effects upon the horse, in large and small doses: in large ones it certainly produced none, neither in small ones could we positively assure ourselves of any operation, that there would be perhaps more of form than effect in its administration. Although we have forbidden strong diuretics in this complaint, as a substitute for the pur- gative medicines, we believe small doses of nitre in fine powder may be administered with benefit, and if mixed with a double quantity or treble of gum Tragacanth in fine powder also, (for we wish to avoid any thing given in this way, that will nauseate the animal or occasion indeed his refusing it), so this medicament, easily placed in his mashes, will not be liable to this objection; and whilst the nitre gently moves the urinary organs, the gum dissolved in the
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