Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

JAUNDICE, OR THE YELLOWS. 327
other tumors in the liver will effect the same thing. Inflammation
may exist in the ducts themselves. They may become thickened or
ulcerated, and thus cease to give passage to the bile, which will then
be taken up by the absorbents of the liver, or mechanically forced
back upon the vessels whence it was secreted. These are occasional
causes of jaundice; and when they exist it will not be wondered
at that the complaint is obstinate, and too often fatal.
Sometimes the source of the evil may exist in the duodenum. It
may be inflamed or ulcerated, or thickened, an,d so the opening from
the biliary duct into the intestine may be closed: or the mucus
which may be secreted in the duodenum may be too abundant, or
of too viscid a character, and thus also the orifice may be mechanically
obstructed.
What symptom will indicate to the practitioner which of these
morbid states of the liver or its ducts, or if the first intestine, is the
cause of the disease ? or if it did, what means could he adopt in
such a case with the hope of ultimate success ? The treatment of
confirmed jaundice is a thankless and disheartening business. The
practitioner, however, must look carefully and anxiously to the symptoms,
and be guided by them. There is no general rule to direct him
here. If there is evident fever, he must bleed, and regulate his ab-
straction of blood by the apparent degree of fever. In every case
but that of diarrhoea, and at the commencement of that, he must
administer purgatives—in large doses when fever is present, or in
somewhat smaller quantities, but more frequently repeated, when
constipation is observed ; and in doses still smaller, but yet sufficient
to excite a moderate and yet continued purgative action, when neither
fever nor constipation exists. Considering, however, the natural
temperament of cattle, the purgative should be accompanied by a
more than usual quantity of the aromatic, unless the degree of fever
should plainly forbid it. There are few things respecting which
veterinary practitioners differ more than the kind of purgative that
should be administered in this case. Some, who are usually partial
to the Epsom or Glauber's salts, here prefer the aloes.
It may not, perhaps, be quite a matter of indifference what purga-
tive is administered. The Epsom salts here, as in other cases, is the
safest, the most to be depended upon, and the most effective : but
the secret of treating jaundice, not with the almost invariable success
of which some speak, but with the best prospect of doing good,
is by the repetition of mild purgatives, accompanied, and their power
increased, and the digestive powers of the animal roused, and his
strength supported by the addition of aromatics and stomachics, in
such doses as the slight degree, or the absence, of fever may indi-
cate. The author certainly cannot confirm by his testimony the
opinion of the comparative ease with which the complaint may be
removed : he has not only found it to be one of the most common