Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

256 CATTLE.
2. Other circumstances supervene, 'which, however, are never 'dangerous.
In different regions of the body, cold, soft, or hard tumors,
of an indolent kind, form. Sometimes there remain hard indurations,
or swelling of the glands and teats, with suppression or diminution
of the milky secretion. Though the teat presents nothing abnormal,
the milk is less abundant, or altered in its qualities. The
skin is covered with small scabs succeeding pustules which contained
a fluid ; the eruption occupied the entire or only a portion of the
body ; it is accompanied with itching or not ; the hair remains star-
ing, and does not recover its brightness. The evacuations continue
to be hard and scanty. There is emphysema under the skin ; cre-
pitation is felt on passing the hand over it. The skin is completely
hard, and does not yield to the action of its proper muscles ; the
appetite and ruminations are not reestablished.
All these sequelae yield in a little time to the prolonged use of
arsenicum, a dose of which is to be taken every six hours, until no
trace any longer remains ; which usually is the work of three or four
days. The absence of appetite and sluggishness of the intestina)
canal quickly yield to a few doses of nux vomica. The appetite
almost always returns four or six hours after the first, and if the con
stipation .continue, the medicine is to be repeated every six hours
Spiritus sulphuratus is employed for the eruption, and arsenicuv
for all the other ailments.
In order to preserve the animals from the disease, they are made
to take, first every forty-eight hours, then every twenty-four, ana
lastly every twelve hours, one drop of arsenicum in the morning, one
hour before eating, and in the evening, two hours after doing so.
THE EPIDEMIC OP 1840 AND 1841.
Since the last edition of this work was published, a new disease
has appeared amongst cattle and shoep, and for the last ten years it
has spread through the kingdom as an, epidemic, scarcely sparing a
single parish from its visitation. Though not by any means usually
fatal in its effects, it has yet altogether destroyed -a great number,
and the pecuniary loss has been still greater from the debilitating
effects which it has produced or left behind. It has been proved to
b'e extremely infectious, and it is difficult to say whether the greater
number of cases have^ been thus produced or spontaneously occa-
sioned. It has sometimes* appeared amongst the cattle of a farm",
scarcely sparing a single case ; and again, after some months' absence,
it has re-appeared on the same farm amongst the sbeep, or perhaps
the swine. In some cases, and on some occasions, the symptoms of
the disease have been very slight, and the cases have soon got well
without any medical treatment; but in other cases the symptoms
have been extremely severe, and attended with danger. It has