False membranes not due to a common microbian cause. Accessory causes
in solipeds; caustics, smoke infection. Lesions: Congestion, necrosis;
croupous exudate, extending to patches on bowels and bronchia; kidney
infarctions; blood altered. Symptoms: fever, dyspnœa, mucous rattle in
throat, swelling, painful, difficult deglutition, yellow or cyanotic
mucosæ, pinched face, weakness, prostration. Duration. Diagnosis.
Treatment, as for catarrhal pharyngitis with antiseptics by inhalation
and electuary. Iron.
Pharyngites attended by the formation of false membranes are met with in
all the domestic animals and may be grouped together as a special class.
The collection of these in one group, however, must not be taken to
imply that all of these, as met with in the different animals have the
same pathology, and are due to one invariable cause. Above all it must
not be inferred that they are identical with the malignant diphtheria of
the human being. The bacillus diphtheriæ hominis isolated by Klebs in
1883, and proved pathogenic by Löffler in 1884, has not been
successfully inoculated upon any of the larger domestic animals, and has
not been found in any of the casual pseudomembranous pharyngitis of
these animals. The common feature of the group is to be found in the
formation of the false membrane, and the fact that a given disease is
placed in the group must not be held to apply to any special character,
of microbian origin, nor communicability by infection.