Pneumonia--or inflammation of the lungs--is not a common disease in the
Northern States; but undoubted cases of it sometimes occur, after sheep
have been exposed to sudden cold, particularly when recently shorn. The
adhesions occasionally witnessed between the lungs and pleura of
slaughtered sheep, betray the former existence of this disease in the
animal--though, in many instances, it was so slight as to be mistaken,
at the time, for a hard cold.
_Symptoms._ The animal is dull, ceases to ruminate, neglects its food,
drinks frequently and largely, and its breathing is rapid and laborious;
the eye is clouded; the nose discharges a tenacious, fetid matter; the
teeth are ground frequently, so that the sound is audible at some
distance; the pulse is at first hard and rapid, sometimes intermits, but
before death it becomes weak. During the height of the fever, the flanks
heave violently; there is a hard, painful cough during the first stages,
which becomes weaker, and seems to be accompanied with more pain as
death approaches.
After death, the lungs are found more or less hepatized--that is,
permanently condensed and engorged with blood, so that their structure
resembles that of the _hepar_, or liver--and they have so far lost their
integrity that they are torn asunder by the slightest force. It may here
be remarked that when sheep die from any cause, _with their blood in
them_, the lungs have a dark, hepatized appearance. Whether they are
actually hepatized or not, can readily be decided by compressing the
windpipe, so that air cannot escape through it, and then between such
compression and the body of the lungs, in a closely fitting orifice,
inserting a goose-quill, or other tube, and continuing to blow until the
lungs are inflated as far as they can be. As they inflate, they will
become of a lighter color, and plainly manifest their cellular
structure. If any portions of them cannot be inflated, and retain their
dark, liver-like consistence, and color, they exhibit hepatization--the
result of high inflammatory action--and a state utterly incompatible, in
the living animal, with the discharge of the natural functions of the
viscus.
_Treatment._ In the first, or inflammatory stages, bleeding and
aperients are clearly called for. Some recommend early and copious
bleeding, repeated, if necessary, in a few hours; this followed by
aperient medicines, such as two ounces of Epsom salts, which may be
repeated in smaller doses, if the bowels are not sufficiently relaxed.
The following sedative may also be given with gruel, twice a day:
nitrate of potash, one drachm; powdered digitalis, one scruple; and
tartarized antimony, one scruple.
While depletion may be of inestimable value during the continuance--the
short continuance--of the febrile state, yet excitation like this will
soon be followed by corresponding exhaustion, when the bleeding and
purging would be murderous expedients; and gentian, ginger, and the
spirits of nitrous ether will afford the only hope of cure.