112 GENERAL ARTICLES.

pressant and paralysing effect of chloroform. It should be placed on the back of the tongue or injected hypodermically (the former, I think, the best method in animals " ,hich breathe through the mouth) in fitll medicinal doses, undiluted with water, as soon as the breathing is noticed to be dangerous. In all the above cases Scheele's acid was used, and I think it is to be preferred before the B. P. acid on account of its extra strength and consequent rapidity of action. If the respirations have already ceased, its beneficial effects, like all other antidotal measures, are not always certain; but if it can be introd lIced into the sys tem within half a minute of the cessation of respirat ion or pulse, and artificial respiration commenced at once, the chances of success are "ery good .

A s compared with hypodermic injections of ether, ammonia, or strychnia, its rapidity of action gives hy drocyanic acid an unquestion­able advantage, and when used on the tongue as a vapour its power of starting the respiratory mechanism, and of prolonging the efforts ,,,hen they have commenced, is decidedly superior to the vapours of ammonia or nitrite of amyl. Care must be taken with reference to the dose. as if too much acid he given death may ensue from this cause. In all cases afitll medicin al dose should be given; this must be left largely to the discretion of the an~sthetist,as the breed, age, size, and condition of the patient all tend largely to modify this in the dog and cat. About I minim of Scheele's acid for every seven or eight pounds of body weight is a fair average amount; the best way to apply it is by means of a drop tube with a rubber teat attached. If an overdose be gi"en its effects must be palliated by the cautious and judicious reapplication of chloroform, and artificial respiration to combat and quieten the spasm of the respiratory muscles , until the acid has become sufficiently eliminated from the system.. Another point to observe is not to be too anxious to administer a second dose until perfectly sure that the first has been futile (Cases 35 and 36 show the results of this very well ). Recovery, too, when prolonged . is decided ly hastened by cautious use of the acid, as the powerful and increased respiratory efforts cause the inhalati on of more fresh air and the expulsion of more chloroform vapour from the system.

I am aware that the question may be raised as to the proportion of cases that would have recovered if artificial respiration alone had been used , o r even if the animal had been left to itself after respiration had stopped ; but from many opportunities which I have had of observing this I am convinced that the use of the acid gives an enormously higher proportion of successes, and for this reason can confidently bring it under the notice of the profession.

ROARING, WHISTLING, AND GRUNTING.

By JAMES MACQUEEN, F.R.C.V.S .. Royal Veterinary College, London.

DISCUSSIONS on symptomatic pa thology are always interesting and occasionally instructiye. Suggesting the base upon which conviction has been raised, they show how opinion is sometimes formed and how error may be perpetuated.

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At recent meetings of veterinary societies attention has been directed to the diagnosis of defects of wind by a q uestion con­cerning the importance of grunting in horses submitted to examina­tion for soundness. Two or three societies passed a resolution implying that grunting is a decided unsoundness. T\\'o or three agreed in thinking that g"runting does not necessarily constitute unsoundness, while others arrived at the conclusion that the question shou ld be left to the practitioner to decide for himself. This result, however unsatisfactory, may effect some good. If it shake the confidence of a few, it may reassure many, and perhaps sharpen the practice of all examiners of horses as to soundness.

Terms descriptive of defects of wind have never been remark­able for either accuracy or elegance, and although many of the old names no longer occur in modern print or practice, the reports of the discussions on grunting would seem to suggest the need for further elimination. The sounds recognised as I. roaring" and "whistling" are generally ascribed to laryngeal paralysis, but the cause of " grunting" waits demonstration. When horses in England first roared or ,vhistled is now un certain. The older writers on farriery appear to have been famili ar with many respiratory affections and with the tests of wind commonly practised to-day, but they do not mention " roaring "-a term which was not e mployed in this country until some time after the foundation of the Royal Veterinary College. In France roaring, or its equi,"alent comage, was recognised by Solleysel in 1664, but Sir \\,illiam Hope, who prepared Solleysel's Parfait J1Iaresdlal for English readers in 1696, cloes not use the \\"ord. Advising the buyer of horses, Hope states :_H After you are certain that the horse's flank is right and sound you are to observe if he be not a wheezer or blower. There are some wheezers or blowers which rattle and make a noise th rough their nose." Nor does "roaring" occur in the writings of Gibson ( 1719), Bracken (1749), Wallis (1775 ), or Hunter (1796). These farriers, following" more or less closely the information contained in Hope's ., Compleat Horseman," refer to wheezing, rattling, blowing, whistling, and thick-wind, and their omission of I, roaring" should be a ttributed, not to ignorance of the sound, but rather to their having been guided by Hope's translation of cornage, which 'was then represented by wheezing. a term still found side by side with comage in French-English dictionaries. To indicate an abnormal respiratory sound roaring is employed by Lawrence (180I ) and \Vhite (r80z), and Boardman (1805) states :_H Roaring is a singular noise which the horse makes when put into a brisk motion a disease little noticed by writers, though well known to jockeys and horse-dealers." Percivall (Eli!lIlelltaJJ' Lectur.?s, 1824) explains very fully his conception of roaring, whistling, wheezing, etc., and Youatt's book, I. The Horse," I R3 I , co ntains an excellent description of roaring and other symptoms of respiratory difficulty. The publication of these works, with the first few volumes of the VeteriNarian, marks the inception of the current usage of" roaring" and" whistling" in veterinary practice.

Of the causes to which roaring has been ascribed little need be said, but the ingenuity of most veterinary surgeons would be puzzled to name a defect-congenital or acquired-of the various tissues between the diaphragm and nose that has not been proclaimed as a probable

I I4 GENERAL .\RTlCLES.

cause. Every observer from Solleysell downwards confesses that abnormal sounds are produced by obstruction or impediment at some part of the respiratory passage, nasal, laryngeal or tracheal, but opinion as to the origin of the exciting cause is far from unaniml>us. Catarrh, strangles, laryngitis, bronchitis, influenza, are most often given as the diseases which precede roaring or whistling, temporary or permanent, and amongst other assigned causes may be mentioned pharyngeal abscess, tumours, ulceration, ossification or distortion of larynx or trachea," bands of adhesive matter," tight reining, mechanical obstruction, projections in the nasal fossze, displaced molar teeth, pus in the guttural pouches, compression of the vagus (Dupuy), compression of left recurrent nerve between aorta and trachea (Martin, Franck), pressure by collar on left recurrent (Goubaux), enlarged bronchial glands and aortic aneurism (Ferguson, 1837), (Robertson I 8~5), violent aortic pulsation and dilatation (Sledamgrotsky, Sussdorf), feeding on chick vetches (Delafond, 1828), or on Indian "mutters" (Leather, M'Call, 1885), inherent tendency (Prof. Brown), impaired digestion (Sir IIy. Simpson), old age (l\1. Dawson), early foaling 0. Porter), heredity, and conformation; of which causes many may only be accepted as predisposing, perhaps merely coincidently, to the action of the exciting cause, while others, presumptive or purely speculative, should be regarded, at best, as problematical in face of present know­ledge.

But if clinical obsen'ation has failed to establish indisputable con­nection between the occurrence of roaring or whistling and one or another of the conditions just named, post-mortem examination and experiment have proved that the majority (accqrding to Gunther 96%) of cases of chronic roaring arc: immediately due to loss of power in the dilator muscles of the larynx. The causal relation of recurrent paralysis to roaring and whistling was first suggested by Dupuy, professor at Alfort Veterinary College, in 1807. In conjunction with Dupuytren, Dupuy divided the pneumogastric nerve and induced roaring. Experiments were repeated in 1815 and 1825, and the results were published with the authority of the college staff in 1827.

Ten years later (1837) John Field demonstrated the effect of section of the recurrent nerve upon respiration and the laryngeal muscles. But in 1824 Percivall observed" wasting or total absorption of one or more muscles;" and, as was the custom, Youatt quickly announced atrophy of the dilator muscles as a frequent lesion of the larynges of roarers. At first Percival! rather under-estimated his discovery, for he dismisses a suggestion that the muscular change is the consequence of paralysi'i, or of spasm as "baseless conjecture unworthy of comment;" \vhile Y ouatt, with more foresight, maintained that laryngeal atrophy is the ejreet and not the muse of that \vhich produces roaring. The influence of heredity in the causation of respiratory defects was suspected in :'\ormandy in 1764, soon after the intro­duction of some Danish stallions, and later observations on the Con­tinent and in this country have confirmed the suspicions. William Day, at one time the largest breeder of thoroughbred stock in England, asserts that roaring "in many instances is undoubtedly transmitted from parents to offspring," and that a tendency to the disease is not always discO\'erable by merely ascertaining what has been the health of one generation. "Like the gout roaring is

GENERAL ARTICLES. I IS

often known to lie dormant for a generation or two, only to reappear in another With increased violence." Hereditary roaring and whi:otling received official recognition from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1889, when the Council furnished the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding with the names of diseases which render a stallion or mare unfit for stud purposes. About this time thirty-two witnesses, veterinary surgeons, breeders, trainers, and others of great experience were directly examined by the Royal Commissioners, and in 1890 roaring and whistling were included with the diseases (, which shall disqualify a thoroughbred stallion for the purposes of the Com­mission."

I t is noteworthy that "grunting" does not occur in the list of diseases prepared by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, or in that adopted by the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding. In the evidence led before the Commissioners only a passing word is given to grunting. One witness stated that he should reject a grunting horse, because" if he grunts he generally becomes a whistler as well." Another thought grunting suggestive of roaring; and a third had "frequently tested horses that grunt which are perfectly sound in their wind under exertion." In fact, as the report shows, neither Commissioners nor witnesses were inclined to consider grunting as a defect of prime importance.

The earliest application of " grunting" to horses cannot be traced. According to dictionaries a grunt is a short groan, or a deep guttural sOLlnd as of a hog. Probably imitative originally; whence the Greek gru-the cry of a pig; Latin, grunnio; French, grogner; German, grunzen; Danish, grynte; Anglo-Saxon, grunan; and English, gcoan. Gruntling is a district name for a young pig; and on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States there is a grunting fish.

At first, the sound sometimes emitted by a threatened horse was called a groan, and its significance in the early part of this century may be gathered from Lawrence and \Vhite. Lawrence states that de'alers have a method of ascertaining the existence of roaring by striking the horse under the belly. "If he groans, they say, it proves that he is a roarer." And White, referring to this test at Repositories where no other trial is allowed, says that" dealers whip the horse under the belly and make him turn suddenly round, or leap over the bar. If he is a roarer this sudden exertion causes him to groan," Percivall was probably the first veterinarian to write upon "grullting" in horses .. His lecture on roaring (1824) contains :-" vVe are not only told of roarer", but we hear of pipers, wheezers, highblowers, and grunters, a cant in common use among our horse dealers of the vulgar meaning of which no professional man should show ignor­ance." Youatt defines roaring as "an unnatural, loud grunting, sound, made by the animal in the act of breathing when in quick action, or on any sudden exertion," which, by the way, permits the inference that a grunt, like one of the tones which constitute a chord, is an essential of roaring, But it is only fair to add what Youatt also states :_H Every horse violently exercised 011 a full stomach, or when overloaded with fat, will grunt almost like a hog . . but there are some horses who will at all times emit it [grunt] if suddenly touched with whip or spur. They are called grunters, and should be avoided." At that time (1831) defects of wind were not well under-

IlO GENERAL ARTICLES.

stood. Grunting was regarded as a "species of roaring." Field had not yet cut the recurrent; and Percivall, although familiar with French books, had not at once accepted, as proved, the nervous origin of roaring and whistling. But with the growth and diffusion of veterinary knowledge, less and less consideration was given to grunt­ing per se. In books paragraphs on grunting were replaced in new editions by incidental references, and in examinations for soundness the "stick and cough" tests of wind gave way to a splitting gallop, except at sale yards, where limited space, expediency, or exigency of practice encouraged a belated few to continue a method introduced, but by no means relied upon by tlwir ancestors.

In proof of the diminishing importance of grunting, works of recognised authority in veterinary practice may be consulted with advantage; thus, Percivall, 1853 :-" For the purpose of producing this sudden respiratory effort [roaring], our common practice is to make a feint or threat to strike the animal, which indeed rarely fails, should the horse ha\·e the disorder, to call forth involuntarily, the roar or characteristic grunt, and so confirm our worst suspicions. . . . Next we cough the horse; the protracted grunting or groaning of the cough, being to an experienced ear equally characteristic, may, in conjunction with the former test, be received as pretty satisfactory." Then with progressive caution Percivall proceeds :-" I regret, however, to be compelled to add that the absence of these summary tests will not, in all cases, bear us out in pronouncing the horse not to be a roarer. In a case of this kind, my common observation to the gentleman is, " I do not find your horse roars either on being struck or coughed, but you must not take this remark as a certificate that he is perfectly sound in his wind to "atisfy yourself of that, you had better give him a splitting gallop, and, if practicable, on soft ground or up hill; this is your only sure mode of detecting minor imperfections in wind."

Sir Frederick Fitzwygram, 1869 :-" Grunts very similar to those given by roarers when threatened with a blow are emitted by horses with big bellie,." especially by those just taken up from a straw-yard. The cause in such cases may be sudden pressure on the diaphragm from the stomach. Horses, also, which have been long in dealers' yards and have been frequently examined a-; to wind will sometimes grunt on being approached on account of fear of a blow. Such grunts have often no connection with roaring; but the borses which emit them should be examined as to their wind with more than ordinary care. Grunting and roaring usually go together, though as above stated they may be unconnected."

Gamgee, 1875, does not mention grunting, but :-" The diagnosis of roaring demands a careful examination of a horse through various paces and chiefly in the gallop."

Robertson, 1885, favours the stick and cough tests for roaring and whistling" where the lesion upon which the sound depends is fully established." But" in the greater number of instances, hmyever, \ve find it necessary to put the animal to some severe or rapid exertion by which respiratory moyements will be called into vigorous and prolonged action." Grunting" is often of considerable importance" and in some horses, " a symptom of disease." "As a pure laryngeal sound, un associated with any affection of the chest or nernlUS

GENERAL ARTICLES. 11/

irritability, it ought always to be regarded with suspicion, because, if not of itself constituting unsoundness, it is indicative of a condi tion the probable result of which is permanent deficiency in respi ration." "The quality of the grunting sound is the main consideration, and modification of pitch, high or low, usually conveys a fairly correct idea as to whether or not the larynx is affected."

Professor Williams, 1890 :-" The roarer generally has a cough which is diagnostic, being a loud, harsh, dry sound, half roar, half cough; and the generality of roarers are also grunters. In testing a horse for its wind, it is usually the practice with some to place it against a wall and threaten it with a whip; if it grunts it is further tested; if not, it is merely made to cough by pressing the larynx, and if the cough has a healthy sound the animal is generally passed sound. This plan is not always satisfactory, and the better \vay is to have the animal galloped, or, if a cart horse, to move a heavy load some little distance." "Laryngeal sounds, with the exception of 'grunting: constitute unsoundness. If a horse, when struck at or suddenly moved, emits, during expiration, a grunting sound it is called a grunter. Such a sound mayor may not have any connection with disease of the larynx." "Some horses habitually grunt when struck. A great number of cart horses are so affected, and big horses of all breeds ... whilst they may be quite sound in their wind." Horses with " heavy jaws" and" ill-set necks" often grunt, and so may" any horse fed for a time all bulky food." "If the g runter, however, stands the tests used to detect roaring without making any noise in its breathing, it may be considered sound. "

Dr Fleming (1889) describes the cough of a horse suffering from one-sided paralysis of the larynx as "deep and sepulchral," and refers to the fact" that some horses which are not roarers will em it a sound resembling a grunt," but the noise is "produced by forcible expiratioN of air throu::;-h relaxed vocal cords, and not in inspiration as in roaring." "Exciting or frightening is by no means a sure test, though often resorted to." ,. Some horses which are decided roarers, ",hen galloped or otherwise exerted, " 'iII not make a noise when threatened by whip or cane. Neither is coughing a reliable or possible test in all cases."

Grunting, judged by the'3e extracts, has failed in practice to maintain the significance attached to it originally. Youatt advises buyers to avoid grunting horses. Percivall, with more experience, doubts the value of the absence of grunting. Blaine and Gamgee pass the word in silence. FitzlVygram cautions extra care in testing grunters. Robertson hints that grunting is sometimes due to disease- which no one disputes. Williams excludes" grunting" from laryngeal unsound­ness; and Fleming withdraws the sound from the sure symptoms of respi ratory incompetence.

From the time of the technically uneducated farriers to the present, the motive of trying to elicit a groan or grunt from the horse has been based upon belief, however erroneous, that grunting is diagnostic of respiratory disease. But the dependence of grunting upon defect of the respi ratory apparatus in horses that neither whistle nor roar has yet to be proved. Nor has anyone attempted to sho\\' why all horses that unmistakably roar or whistle do not all grunt; and as alI grunting horses are not roarers or whistlers the cause of the exceptions merits

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inquiry. Let the explanation be that grunting precedes and proclaims approaching roaring or whistling. The question remains unsettled, because horses may grullt at any age, and the oldest grunter may neither roar nor whistle.

But some may contend, pmdmte lite, that as grunting may lead to roaring or whistling, or, more correctly, that as young grunting horses sometimes become roarers, the veterinary surgeon must refuse, if he would sustain his reputation and escape the odium of contingency, to pass horses that only grunt. \Vhether or not the practitioner ever does anything of the kind is uncertain; but if such action be usual in regard to grunting, parity of reasoning suggests its immediate exten­sion to weak hocks, tied-in knees, long pasterns, and faulty conforma­tion generally. Already sufficiently burdened, the veterinary surgeon would be extremely unwise to undertake the responsibility of the future soundness of any horse, in spite of the fact that roaring or whistling is not a constant sequel of early grunting. But the exquisitely captious examiner of horses may find fleeting comfort in reading a line from that much over-rated book, Oliphants' "Law of Horses" :-" Grunting is an unsoundness; see roaring." Reassurance will not accompany the reference where this occurs, even in the fourth edition, 1882 :-" The most general cause of roaring is a tough viscid substance which is thrown out in the shape of fluid, and adheres to the sides of the larynx," et seq. This rubbish on roaring is a fair sample of the veterinary contents of a law book of great influence in the courts. If its law is not more accurate, not to say up to-date, than its pathology-which only an Ecphractic could improve-no one need wonder at the unsatisfactory termination of horse causes.

Howgrunting carne to beconsidered,even byOliphant,as an unsound­ness does not appear; but two judgments on roaring show plainly enough why grunting should not be so regarded. In ISIO Lord Ellen­borough said :-" It has been held by \'ery high authority (Sir ]. l\-1ans­field,C.]. ) that roaring is not necessarily unsoundness,and I entirely con­cur in that opinion. If a horse emits a loud noise which is offensive to the ear, merely from a bad habit which he has contracted or from any cause which does not interfere with his general health or muscular powers, he is still to be considered a sound horse. On the other hand, if the roaring proceeds from any disease or organic infirmity which renders him incapable of performing the usual function s of a horse, then it does constitute unsoundness." Ten years later ( 1817) the same judge :-" If a horse be affected by any malady which renders him less serviceable for a permanency, I have no doubt that it is an unsoundness. I do not go by the noise, but by the disease. . . . To prove a breach of the warranty the plaintiff must go on to show that the roaring is symptomatic of disease." By reading grunting for roaring the legal aspect of grunting will be ascertained.

Bearing these decisions in mind veterinary surgeons have con­tinued to condemn as unsound horses that roar or whistle, and to refuse to reject, as unsound, horses that only grunt. And the practice has been well founded. The larynx of the chronic roarer or whistler may be relied upon to furnish evidence of disease " while the slightest trace of morbid change may be wanting in the larynx of the grunter, which neither roars nor whistles. But some may urge that custom has sanctioned the recognition of

GENERAL ARTICLES. II9

grunting as symptomatic of roaring, and that testing (?) the wind by" punching and coughing" is convenient to many practising in cities. The convenience may be conceded, but the practice should be discouraged as uncertain, misleading, and at best unsatisfactory. For most observers will admit that grunting offers much variety, and that the sound emitted by a grunter cannot always be clearly defined or un mistakenly appreciated. But the grunt which some roaring horses utter when threatened has been described as a prolonged groan, unlike any other and quite different from the short grunt, of no patho­logical import, which sound-winded horses sometimes emit when flinching. From which it would seem that the unsound grunt should be taken as the involute of the evolute of the grunt which is not unsound. In practice, however, the difficulty of distinguishing the grunt of disease from a grunt compatible with health has been sufficient to induce veterinary surgeons to abandon the effort to fix the value of a fugitive sound of inconstant volume, length, and pitch. For thi" purpose an adaptation of the phonograph to the diatonic scale appears necessary, and the future may be trusted to produce a genius with enough ability to contri\'e an apparatus which will settle grunting differences outside veterinary societies.

Meanwhile mental attitude towards grunting might be improved if the parties to the discussion would take the trouble in practice to note the numbers of (a) horses that grunt and neither whistle nor roar; (b) horses that roar or whistle and do not grunt; and (c) horses that grunt and roar or whistle.

D ntil grunting, short or long, can be irrefutably connected with a constant lesion, whether of the respiratory or another apparatus does not matter, no one may justly condemn a horse for grunti'ng alone. To constitute unsoundness a noise must depend upon disease, and until the cause of grunting has been ascertained nothing will be gained by sacrificing accuracy to expediency, mistaking functional flutter for structural incompetence, accepting the outcome of fear for the effect of effort, expiratory sound for inspiratory symptom, or grunting' for roaring.

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE MORBID ANATOMY OF SWINE-FEVER.

By J. M'FADYEAN, Royal Veterinary College, London.

The purpose of the following article is to describe the naked eye and microscopic characters of the lesions that are commonly encountered in cases of swine-fever. I think that this object may be best attained by giving, in the first place, the results of a careful post-mortem examination in a series of selected cases of the disease, and then summarising under the head of the various organs the information thus obtained. vVith reference to the following series of cases it may be remarked that a special value belongs to the jost-mortem notes, in­asmuch as the exact date of infection of each pig was known.

CASE I.-Pig about two months old. Infected by feeding with artificial culture of the swine-fever bacillus. Died 011 the second day.

Post-mortem.-Slight livid skin discolouration on under aspect of abdomen.