Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

DISEASES OF THE MANYPLtTS, OR MANIFOLDS. 315
of a narcotic nature. A sudden change from green and succulept
food to that which is hard and fibrous may also readily be supposed
to be a very likely cause of it. The strange fancy that induces many
cows, and especially those in calf, to refuse the soft and nutritious
food of the pasture and browse on the coarse grass and weeds which
the hedges produce, will necessarily overload the manyplus with hard
and fibrous substances ; and many a beast has suffered in this way
from being too rapidly and exclusively put on chaff of various kinds.
The symptoms vary in different animals, but the following is an
outline of them : the animal is evidently oppressed ; the pulse is
somewhat accelerated and hard ; the respiration not much quickened ;
the muzze dry ; the mouth hot ; the tongue protruded, and seemingly
enlarged ; the membrane both of the eyes and nose injected ; the eye
protruded or weeping ; the head extended ; the animal unwilling to
move ; the gait uncertain and staggering ; the urine generally voided
with difficulty, and sometimes red and even black. There is apparent
and obstinate costiveness, yet small quantities of liquid faeces are
discharged. As the disease proceeds, and often at an early period,
there is evident determination of blood to the head, evinced not only
by this staggering gait, but by a degree of unconsciousness ; the eyes
weep more ; the lids are swollen ; the costiveness continues or some
hardened excrement is voided, but fetid and mixed with blood
rumination ceases ; the secretion of milk is usually suspended, or the
milk becomes offensive both in taste and smell ; the urine flows more
abundantly, but that too continues of a dark color.
Many of these symptoms distinguish this complaint from distension
of the rumen ; there is not the hardness at the flanks,
and the general swelling of the belly, which is observed in disten-
sion by food ; nor the greater distension and threatened suffocation
which accompany hoove. In bad cases, and when the symptoms
take on much of the character of that undescribed and unintelligible
disease, wood-evil—trembling of the frame generally, a degree
of palsy, coldness of the extremities, actual swelling of the tongue,
the eyes glaring, and the ears and the tail being in frequent and
convulsive motion—these are the precursors of death.
The period of the termination of the disease is uncertain ; it
extends *rom three or four days to more than as many weeks.
Many of these .symptoms so often accompany other diseases, that
they are utterly insufficient always or generally to lead to a right
conclusion as to the nature of the complaint, and careful inquiry
must be made into the history of the case.
The treatment is as unsatisfactory as the history of the symptoms.
It will always be proper to bleed, in order to diminish any existing
fever, or to prevent the occurrence of that which continued disease _
of this important stomach would be likely to produce. To this"
should follow a dose of physic, in order to evacuate the intestines
;