Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

DIARR.HCEA AND DYSENTERY. 343
part ; but in this ease the practitioner can in some measure avail
himself of the advantage of local bleeding, for by opening the subcutaneous
or milk vein he takes blood from the parietes of the abdomen,
and from that portion of them which is nearest to the inflamed
part. The repetition of the bleeding must depend on circumstances,
of which the practitioner will be the best judge.
Another abater of inflammation will be a mild aperient. A little
consideration will show that this is not contrarindicated even by the
degree of purging which then exists ; for the retention of matter,
such as that discharged in dysentery, must be a far greater source
of irritation than the stimulus of a mere laxative.
The kind of medicine is a consideration of far more consequence
than seems to be generally imagined. There would be a decided
objection to the aloes so frequently resorted to in these cases : there
would be some degree of doubt respecting that excellent and best
medicine for general purposes, the Epsom salts. Both of them might
add to the excessive irritation which the practitioner is so anxious to
allay. Castor oil will here, as in acute diarrhoea, be decidedly pre-
ferred, and in the same doses. Some judgment will be required as
to the repetition of the purgative. Its object is the simple evacuaof
morbid faecal matter, and not the setting up of any permanently
increased action of the bowels : therefore, if, instead of the comparatively
scanty and mucous discbarges of dysentery, a fair quantity
of actual feces has been brought away, there can be no occasion
for, or, rather, there would be objection to, the continuance of the
purgative. Linseed oil certainly stands next in value to the castor
oil as arr aperient, when the bowels are in an irritable state.
This being inflammation of the large or lower intestines, there will
be evident propriety in the administration of emollient injections. By
means of the injection or enema-pump, the intestines in the ox,
which are the seat of this disease, may be completely filled with
some emollient fluid ; and that which is most of all indicated here,
and especially in the early stage of treatment, is gruel, well-boiled
and thick ; a pailfull of it may be thrown up with advantage two or
three times every day.
Let it now be supposed that this treatment has been pursued
two or three days ;—if the discharges are more fecal, a little greater
in quantity, and attended by less pain or less effort in the expul-
sion of them, that purpose has been effected which the practitioner
was anxious to accomplish, and he must look about for other measures
; or, if the state of the animal remain the same, it will be
useless longer to pursue this plan. Then the surgeon refers once
more to the character of the malady—inflammation of the mucous
membrane of the large intestines—-and he asks what he can bring in
direct contact with the diseased surface, that is likely to allay irrita-
tion or to abate inflammation. Opium immediately presents itself, at