Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

WATER IN THE HEAD. 16S
round. First, some degree of fever comes on—she perhaps scarcely
eats—rumination is suspended—the muzzle dry—the ears and roots
of the horns hot—the breathing laborious, and the hair rough. It is
fever without any evident local determination. Perhaps she is bled
and physicked ; but on the following day, the thing begins to speak
for itself ; she turns round and round, and always in the same direction
: it is pressure upon the brain ; no operation can relieve such an
animal from the hydatid. But is the pressure of the hydatid the
only one that can affect the brain, or produce this peculiar motion ?
Would not effusion of blood, or of any fluid, on some portion of the
bjfain, produce the same effect ? There may have been a too great
determination of blood to the head, and some little vessel may have
given way. It is worth trying for a day or two at least, and the
cow will not be much the worse for slaughter in that time. «She
should be bled copiously ; and a stronger dose of physic be given.
In some instances, perhaps in the majority, the animal will do well.
A spare diet at the time, and a while afterwards, will be plainly
indicated. Success will not, however, attend every case.
It is a disease peculiar to young cattle. It seldom attacks any
beast after he is a year and a half old.
Veterinary writers, in those countries where the hydatid in cattle
\s known, very properly remark that it may be discovered in young
stock, by the softening of the bone at a particular part ; because the
frontal sinuses are not fully developed in young beasts. The hydatid
may then be punctuated with an awl, or better with the trephine
but we recommend that young cattle thus affected should be immediately
destroyed.
WATER IN THE HEAD.
There is another species of pressure on the brain, to which young
cattle are subject, and sometimes even in the foetal state hydrocephalus,
or water in the head. The fluid is usually found between
the membranes, and exists in so great a quantity, and enlarges the
head to such a degree, that parturition is difficult and dangerous
and it is often necessary to destroy the progeny to save the mother.
"We have seen hydrocephalus appear after birth in very weakly
calves ; but do not recollect an instance in a healthy one ; and in
almost every case it has been fatal : . therefore such an animal should
be put to death.
In the adult animal, the pressure of a fluid on the brain will
occasionally be a source of general disease, or death : but it will then
be an accumulation of fluid in the ventricles' of the brain, and not
indicated by any change in the size or form of the skull.
The symptoms
will very much resemble those of apoplexy, except that they
are milder, and the malady is slower in progress—and the network
of minute arteries and veins in the ventricles are usually considerably
enlarged.
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