Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

MILK FEVER—DROPPING AFTER CALVING. 403
quantity of milk which some of them are disposed to give, must
strangely add fuel to the fire, and kindle a flame by which the powers
of nature are speedily consumed. Whether the present improved
method of selection, whereby the properties of grazing and giving
milk are united in the same animal, will increase the tendency to
inflammation, and particularly to this dangerous species of fever, is
a question deserving of consideration.
Puerperal fever sometimes appears as early as two hours after
parturition ; if four or five days have passed, the animal may generally
be considered as safe : yet a fortnight has elapsed between
the calving and the fevej.
The early symptoms of fever are evidently those of a febrile
character. The animal is restless, shifting her feet, pawing, and she
heaves laboriously at the flanks. The muzzle is dry and hot, the
mouth open and the tongue protruded. The countenance is wild,
and the eyes staring. She wanders about mournfully lowing ; she
becomes irritable ; she butts at a stranger, and sometimes even at
the herdsman. Delirium follows ; she grates her teeth, foams at
the mouth, throws her head violently about, and, not unfrequently,
breaks her horns. The udder becomes enlarged, and hot, and ten-
der, at the very commencement of the disease. This is always to
be regarded as a suspicious circumstance in a cow at that time ; and
if this swelling and inflammation be accompanied, as they almost
uniformly are, by a partial or total suspension of the milk, tharwhich
is about to happen is plain enough.
The disease is an inflammatory one, and must be treated as such,
and being thus treated, it is generally subdued without difficulty.
The animal should be bled, and the quantity of blood withdrawn
should be regulated by that standard so often referred to—that rule
without an exception—the impression made upon the circulation.
From six to ten quarts will probably be taken away, depending upon
the age and size of the animal, before the desired effect is produced.
There is no malady which more satisfactorily illustrates the necessity
of endeavoring to subdue as quickly as possible every inflammatory
complaint of cattle by the free use of the lancet; for all of
them run their course with a rapidity which a person unaccustomed
to these animals, and which the human prarctitioner, especially, would
scarcely deem to be possible. To-day the cow is seen with the
symptoms just described— -she is bled, and she is relieved ; or she is
neglected, and the fever has sapped the strength of the constitution,
and left a y fearful debility behind. The small bleedings to which
some hav.e recourse are worse than inefficient, for they only increase the
natural tendency of these maladies to take on a low and fatal form.
A pound or a pound and a half of Epsom salts, dependent on the
size of the beast, must next be administered, with half the usual
quantity of aromatic ingredients ; and half-pound doses of the same