Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

272 CATTLE.
and the health of the animal. In all these cases of chest affection
there is so little prospect of saving the beast, that it would be the
interest of the owner to have him slaughtered at the beginning, if he
be at all in condition, or rather if he be not deploribly thin.
Homoeopathic treatment.—The chief remedy to be employed is
aconitum, of which one dose is to be taken every two, three, or four
hours, according to the severity of the fever, until it has entirely
ceased. The same doses of bryonia are to be given, at intervals of
from eight to twelve hours at least, which remove the remainder of
the disease. Chamomilla contributes to restore the secretion of milk
in milch cows.
PHTHISIS, OR CONSUMPTION.
This is only a continuation of the same subject, or, rather, it is a
description of another termination of chronic disease of the lungs.
One of the consequences of continued inflammation of the lungs is the
formation of tubercles. There is a greater or smaller number of little
distinct cysts, or cells, into which some fluid is poured in the progress
of inflammation. These enlarge, and occupy a space varying from
the size of a pin's head to that of a large egg. By degrees the fluid
changes to a solid, and the tumor becomes harder than the surrounding
substance, and so continues for awhile—the consequence of
inflammation, and the source of new irritation and disease.
At length it once more changes. The tubercle begins to soften at
its centre, something like suppuration goes on there, and the contents
of the swellings become perfectly fluid, but of a different nature from
that which first filled the cyst. It is now pus. The cyst increases
with greater or less rapidity ; it comes in contact with neighboring
ones, and the walls of each are absorbed by their mutual pressure.
They run together and form one cyst, which is called an abscess, or
vomica.
An animal possessing this tuberculated state of the lungs, and the
tubercles running into abscesses, is said to be consumptive. So much
of the lung is destroyed, that there is not enough left for the purposes
of life, and the patient wastes away, and dies.
The lungs of the cow, after chronic or neglected catarrh, or bron-
chitis, or pneumonia, or pleurisy, are much disposed to assume this
tuberculated and ulcerated state. The symptoms of consumption are
not always to be distinguished from those of pleurisy, or even pneumonia
or bronchitis ;
and sometimes there may be extensive ulceration
of the lungs without any indication of disease sufficient to attract
notice. When a bullock is fattened for the butcher, and killed, we
occasionally wonder to observe how little of the lung is left for the
purpose of breathing.
A cough is the earliest symptom, but a cougb of a peculiar char-