PECULIAR TREATMENT FOR PLEUROPNEUMONIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 8

PECULIAR TREATMENT FOR PLEUROPNEUMONIA.

The disease of pleuro pneumonia is apparently common in some districts of Cape Colony, and the losses caused by it are often considerable. The treatment that is generally practised will appear very strange to Australian cattle-broeders, by whom the value of inoculation, both as a cure for and a preventive of the disease, has been so thoroughly demonstrated that it seems odd to find there is a British colony in which cattle are extensively raised where inoculation is not practised. Of the remedies used in Cape Colony the following are common :—Drenching the animals with pure “lung-water/' with “lung-water" and an equal quantity of water, and with “ lung-water " to which is added the hepatised lung, worked into a pulp and the liquid squeezed through a coarse linen cloth. Mr D. Hutcheon, colonial veterinary surgeon, gives the following directions for the treatment of pleuro by drenching, which appeared in the Agricultural Journal , Cap© Colony, January 10th : “ First with respect to the drenching as a preventive of lung-sickness. - The experiments conducted by Mr Soga during the-present year, in addition to the previous practical experience of hundreds of colonists, have clearly shown that drenching is an effective preventive against an attack of the contagious lungsickness of cattle, when properly carried out. It is also comparatively free from danger, if proper precautions are taken, and due care exercised in administering the fluid. The following are the points which should he carefully attended to. “(a.) The fluid found in the chest of an affected beast should alone be used for drenching, and it should be used pure after being strained—no water should be added to it, but the mouth of the beast may, with advantage, be washed out with clean water after the dose has been administered. This is merely to clean the mouth, and prevent local inoculation should there be any abrasion of the lining of the mouth. Some place a tablespoonful of common salt in the beast’s mouth immediately after administering the dose of lung-water to clean the mouth, and it is an excellent plan. “ Experiment has proved that large doses of the lung-water may be administered with safety, but I would recommend for full-grown beasts about twelve fluid ounces, or the ordinary half-bottle nearly full. For younger animals less should be given in proportion to age. i “(6.) The practice of taking the

1 diseased lung, mashing it up, and then mixing it with a quantity of water and using this mixture as a drench is not to be commended, because, as a rule, an ) affected beast, the lung-water of which is to be used for drenching, is invariably allowed to live until nearly the climax of the disease, in order to get as much fluid out of the chest for drenching purposes as possible. That being so, the affected lungs are full, not of lymph, but of other ' diseased products, and consequently the mixture made with these diseased products and water exercises very little specific effect on the system, and cannot therefore be depended upon to act as a preventive against an attack of lungsickness—but it is vory liable to produce blood poisoning. “ (c.) In performing the operation, every care must be exercised to prevent any injury from being inflicted on the mouth either by the finger nails, or bottle used for giving the drench. The least abrasion of the mucous membrane lining the mouth or covering the tongue is liable to lead to local inoculation, which generally ter- , initiates fatally. Operations such as castration, earmarking, and the like, should not be performed on young cattle that have just been drenched, as specific swellings are liable to appear at the seat of operation and even at the seat of any injury.

“2. With regard to the scientific explanation of the effects of drenching it appears to be this :—A sound and healthy mucous membrane, covered by a whole and unbroken epithelium, effectually prevents the active specific germs of the virus of lung-sickness from entering the mucous or sub-mucous tissues of any part of the intestinal canal. Were it otherwise we would get local inoculations invariably after drenching, which we very seldom do. But it is very evident that the product of these germs gains apt entrance to the circulation, and thereby' produces its specific preventive effects on the system." The practice of inoculation for pleuropneumonia as we perform.it does net seem to be well understood in Cape Colony, to judge by the directions given by Mr Hutcheon, in which the following remarks occur.:--“ I cannot recommend the practice of using a portion of the diseased lung for inoculation .... neither can I approve of drying the diseased lung, then powdering it, and using the powder for inoculation purposes."