Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

232 CATTLE.
legs. When art has subdued the disease, nature, although slowly,
will most successfully resume her wonted functions.
The breeder has much in his power in the way of prevention. His
cattle should be carefully examined every day. Any little heaving
at the flanks, or inflammation of the eyes, or heat-bumps on the back,
or rubbing, should be regarded with suspicion, and met by a gentle
purgative, or the abstraction of a little blood; but the decided
appearance of inflammatory fever in one of them will not be misunderstood
for a moment ; it will convince him that he has been making
more haste than good speed, and in the disease of one he will see the
danger of all. All who have been subject to the same predisposing
causes' of disease, should be bled and physicked, and turned into a
field of short and inferior keep.
Prevention of this malady is the only cure worth notice. A piece
of short or inferior keep should be reserved as a digesting place, in
which the cattle may be occasionally turned to empty and exercise
themselves. Those observed to advance very fast may be bled
monthly for several months ; but occasional purges of alterative
medicines would prevent those diseases which seem to take their rise
in over-repletion and accumulation, and are far better than bleeding.
These periodical bleedings increase rather than lessen the disposi-
tion to make blood and fat.
This disease differs materially in its symptoms in different districts,
and in the same district at different times. The difficulty lies in the
other diseases with which the inflammatory fever is combined—sometimes
one, and sometimes another, assuming a prominent character
and while they all generally follow inflammatory fever, yet some of
them occasionally precede it.
In some places, the first symptoms are those of quarter-ill. The
cattle are seized first in one quarter, and then in the other. The skin
puffs up, and the crackling noise is heard almost from the beginning.
The disease is usually fatal when it assumes this form.
In others, where, from the rapidity with which it runs its course, it
is called the speed, it also generally begins behind. Inflammation, or
rather mortification, seizes one hock. It runs up the quarter, which
becomes actually putrid in the couse of an hour or two, while the
other limbs continue sound. Few, especially young beasts, survive
an attack of this kind. Here the active use of local applications is
indicated ; and yet they will rarely be of much service.
In other parts, under the name of the puck, the fore-quarter, or the
side, is the part mostly affected ; and the animal frequently dies in an
hour or two. On skinning the beast, the whole quarter appears
black from the extravasation of blood, and is softened and decomposed,
as though it were one universal bruise.
Homoeopathic treatment.—The principal remedy for the treatment
of this fever is aconitum, which should be repeated at intervals, so
;