Milch cows and work oxen most liable. Causes. Damp buildings and
locations, sudden transitions from heat to cold, exposure when
fatigued, etc. Symptoms, rigor, reaction, cold horns and limbs, later
hot, excited pulse, catching breathing, hyperthermia, 104° to 105°,
tender chine and intercostals, friction sound, later dulness,
creaking, weaker murmur, subacute cases often tuberculous, effusion
unilateral, chronic cases. Lesions, as in horse with superficial
marbling of lung. Treatment, laxative, warm drink, compresses,
derivatives, sedatives, diuretics, heart tonics, diuretics,
thoracentesis.
This is not common in young growing cattle, but is more frequent in
milch cows and work oxen. It is due to the same causes as in the horse,
and especially to chills when heated, damp buildings and locations, cold
draughts between open windows or doors, and cold storms. The greatest
danger comes from hot, close stables, like many distillery stables,
approximating to the temperature of the animal body and from which the
stock are suddenly turned out of doors, or shipped by car or boat with a
temperature near zero, and above all if furnished ice water to drink.
Such animals taking no exercise to increase the circulation and heat,
are especially liable to shiver and contract illness. Rigors too are
easily induced in animals standing in hot buildings, when, in connection
with the cleaning, an adjacent door is thrown wide open or two on
opposite sides of the house. Working oxen heated with exercise and then
exposed to extreme cold and compulsory inaction are endangered.
_Symptoms._ The attack is manifested by the same general symptoms as in
the horse. The rigors are often very well marked, especially over the
shoulder; the tenderness of the chine and intercostal spaces is
striking; the breathing is catching but there is rarely the same
restlessness as in the horse; the bowels are costive, appetite and
rumination impaired or suspended, and the paunch is often distended with
gas. The tenderness of the intercostal spaces, the friction sound of the
pleura, and the maintenance of the respiratory murmur and the normal
resonance of the lung, become the ultimate diagnostic symptoms. The
pulse may be 70° and upward, the temperature above 104° to 105°. In some
insidious cases indeed the fever is very slight and besides the general
wasting of the animal, the indications obtained by physical examination
alone enabled us to recognize the malady. Tuberculous pleurisy which is
very common in cattle is to be suspected in such cases.
Effusion is recognized by the dulness of the lower part of the chest up
to a certain line, and often unilateral, by the softer pulse, by the
dilated nostrils, or open mouth, the contracted facial muscles, by the
glazed eye, and anxious expression, by oppressed breathing and often by
engorgement under the chest and in the limbs.
When the disease lasts over ten or twelve days it tends to pass into the
chronic form. Or a chronic pleurisy of a subacute type may begin _de
novo_ and pursue an insidious and latent course.
If the disease commences as a subacute affection there may have been for
a month, capricious appetite, general ill-health and falling away before
any other symptom is noticed. Now the breathing is manifestly excited, a
small, short cough is heard at intervals, the pulse is accelerated but
weak, and pinching auscultation and percussion detect unequivocal signs
of pleurisy. From this the symptoms become more decided though for a
length of time they are very slight, the animal meanwhile becomes
increasingly emaciated, and perishes ultimately in a state of great
weakness. Such insidious cases are always to be suspected of
tuberculosis.
The _post mortem appearances_ resemble those of the horse. The surface
of the lung beneath the diseased portions of pleura, however, often
presents a marbled appearance from the infiltration of the areolar
tissue between the adjacent pulmonary lobules. The organization of the
false membranes begins on an average about the tenth day.
_Treatment._ The same general principles must be followed as in the
horse. Bleeding can rarely be employed, partly because the disease so
often assumes a subacute form, and partly because when first seen
considerable effusion has often already taken place and severe depletive
measures are thereby contraindicated.
A laxative dose (1 ℔.) of sulphate magnesia, may be given in warm gruel,
and the same means by compresses, hot fomentations and counterirritation
adopted, and the same sedative and diuretic medicines given as in the
horse. In the advanced stages and in the low types of the disease the
stimulating diuretics (sweet spirits of nitre, and liquor of the acetate
of ammonia) and vegetable and mineral tonics are especially indicated.
The diet in these last types must be nutritive, laxative and easily
digested.
Tapping of the chest is equally applicable as in the horse, (_see
Hydrothorax_.)
In the chronic forms everything is to be done to support the general
health whether by food stimulants or tonics, and counterirritants may be
applied several times.