There are many valuable medicines used for the different stages and different types of pneumonia, but in the opinion of the writer it is useless to refer to them here, as this work is intended for the use of those who are not sufficiently acquainted with the disease to recognize its various types and stages; therefore they would only confuse. If you can administer a ball or capsule, or have anyone at hand who is capable of doing it, a dram of sulphate of quinin in a capsule, or made into a ball, with sufficient linseed meal and molasses, given every three hours during the height of the fever, will do good in many cases. The ball of carbonate of ammonia, as advised in the treatment of bronchitis, may be tried if the animal is hard to drench. The heart should be kept strong by administering digitalis in doses of 2 drams of the tincture every three hours, or strychnia 1 grain, made into a pill with licorice powder, three times daily.
If the horse becomes very much debilitated, stimulants of a more pronounced character are required. The following drench is useful: Rectified spirits, 3 ounces; spirits of nitrous ether, 2 ounces; water, 1 pint. This may be repeated every four or five hours if it seems to benefit; or 6 ounces of good whisky diluted with a pint of water may be given as often, instead of the foregoing.
During the period of convalescence good nutritive feed should be allowed in a moderate quantity. Tonic medicines should be substituted for those used during the fever. The same medicines advised for the convalescing period of bronchitis are equally efficient in this case, especially the iodid of potash; likewise, the same general instructions apply here.
The chief causes of death in pneumonia are heart failure from exhaustion, suffocation, or blood poisoning from death (gangrene) of lung tissue. The greater the area of lung tissue diseased the greater the danger; hence double pneumonia is more fatal than pneumonia of one lung.
The windpipe, or trachea as it is technically called, is the flexible tube that extends from, the larynx, which it succeeds at the throat, to above the base of the heart in the chest, where it terminates by dividing into the right and left bronchi--the tubes going to the right and left lung, respectively. The windpipe is composed of about fifty incomplete rings of cartilage united by ligaments. A muscular layer is situated on the superior surface of the rings. Internally the tube is lined with a continuation of the mucous membrane that lines the entire respiratory tract, which here has very little sensibility in contrast to that lining the larynx, which is endowed with exquisite sensitiveness.