Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

CATTLE.
siderable power is, occasionally at least, called into exercise to propel
the blood along the veins. All the veins, however, are not under
the influence of these muscles. The large veins of the chest and
belly are out of the reach of muscular pressure, and are destitute of
this valvular apparatus, .but they are acted upon by a more powerful
principle.
The heart has been described as an elastic muscle. It has scarcely
closed by the stimulus of the organic nerves, when it expands
again by its own inherent elasticity ;
and that important principle, by
the influence of which the water follows the sucker in the common
pump—the pressure of the atmosphere—acts here, too, and the
cavities of the heart are filled again as soon as they expand ; and
this living pump would work on while there was fluid in circula-
tion. Thus the circulation is maintained by the actidn of the heart,
while the blood is passing through the arteries ; by the muscular
power of the capillaries, while it permeates those little vessels ; and
by the pressure of the muscles and the valvular apparatus of the
veins, in some part of its course through them ; and" by atmospheric
pressure, through their whole extent.
VARICOSE VEINS.
Varicose tumors in the cow seldom appear, except in the veins of
the udder, and in the neighborhood of joints that have suffered even
more than usual from the tumors of these parts, to which cattle are
so liable. An old cow that has been a superior milker, frequently
has the veins of the teats permanently enlarged. No application will
take down the swelling, which, however, is rarely of any serious inconvenience.
The veins of the teats are sometimes much enlarged
under Garget. Warm fomentations, in order to abate the general
inflammation of the bag, will afford most relief.
THE CHEST.
The form of the" chest is of much consequence in the ox. There
are important offices to be performed by the viscera of the chest,
which demand constant energetic action, over which the mind has
no control, and where all depends on the form, and extent of the
thoracic cavity. The blood must be purified, and it must be circu-
lated through the frame, and that with a rapidity and perfection
which must not know a moment's intermission.
The chest 'consists of 13 ribs on either side, or 26 in the whole.
Of these 8 on each side are directly connected with the sternum,
or breast bone, and are termed true ribs ; the other five are attached
to cartilages, which are linked together, and also connected with the
sternum in an indirect manner—these are termed false ribs.
The true ribs are long, large, thick, and far apart from each other;