Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

342 CATTLE.
In some cases the emaciation is frightful ; the skin cleaves to the
bones, and the animal has become a living skeleton ; in others there
have been swellings about the joints, spreading over the Wgs generally,
occasionally ulcerated ; and in all, the leaden color of the
membranes, the rapid loss of strength, the stench of the excrement,
and the unpleasant odor arising
the approach of death.
from the animal himself, announce
The appearances after death are extraordinarily uniform, considering
of how many diseases this is the accompaniment or the consequence,
and the length of time that it takes to run its course, and
during which so many other organs might have been readily involved.
The liver is rarely in any considerable state of disease. The first and
second stomachs are seldom much affected ; the third stomach pre-
sents a variable appearance with regard to the state of the food that
it contains, and which is sometimes exceedingly hard, and sometimes
almost pultaceous, but there is no inflammation about the stomach
itself. The fourth stomach exhibits a peculiar change : there is an
infiltration or collection of serous fluid in the cellular substance between
the mucous and muscular coat, showing some, but no very-
acute, degree of inflammation in the submucous tissue. The small
intestines are frequently without a single trace of inflammation, but
sometimes, however, they are thickened and corrugated, but not in-
jected. It is in the caecum, colon, and rectum, that the character
of the disease is to be distinctly and satisfactorily traced.
The account of these post mortem appearances is given at considera-
ble length, because they clearly indicate the hitherto unsuspected nature
of the disease—unsuspected at least among veterinarians ; and
they will probably lead to a mode of treatment that promises a
little more success than has hitherto attended the efforts of^ practi-
tioners. It is plainly inflammation (at first acute, but gradually
assuming a chronic, a more insidious and dangerous form,) of the
large intestines, the colon, caecum, and rectum ; it is the dysentery of
the human being ; it is that which was once the scourge of the human
race, but thousands of whose victims are now rescued from its grasp
by the discovery of its rear seat and character, and the adoption of
those measures which such a disease plainly indicates.
If this malady be of an inflammatory type, the first, and most obvious,
and most beneficial measure to be adopted, is bleeding; and
this regulated by the age, size, and condition of the beast, thelguddenness
and violence of the attack, and the degree of fever. From
two to five or six quarts of blood should be abstracted. There must
be very great debility—the disease must in a manner have run its
course, or the practitioner will be without excuse who, in a case of
inflammation of the large intestines, neglects the abstraction of blood.
General bleeding—bleeding from the jugular—will be of service, as
lessening the general irritation, and the determination of blood to the