Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

408 CATTLE.
from puerperal fever, her milk is dried, and she is fattened and sold
without much loss of time.
Something may be done in the way of prevention. If the cow be
in a high, and consequently a dangerous state of condition, and has
been fed on luxuriant pasture, it will be very proper, as has been
already stated, to bleed her, and give her a dose of physic, and re-
, move her to a field of shorter bite, a little before her expected time
of calving. Many valuable animals have been saved by this precaution.
Homoeopathic treatment.—The first thing to be done, is to administer,
within three or four hours, three or four doses of aconitum,
which generally effect a perceptible calm. Then have recourse to
Pulsatilla and mix vomica. Belladonna is also an excellent remedy,
particularly in cases of very painful swelling of the belly, and of re-
tention of the placenta. Chamomilla restores the secretion of milk.
Paralysis of the hind-quarters will generally yield to nux vomica ; but
if it does not, then it will disappear under the influence of rhus
toxicodendron.
SORE TEATS.
Cows are very subject to inflammatioh of the udder soon after
calving. The new or increased function which is now set up, and
the sudden distension of the bag with milk, produce tenderness and
irritability of the udder, and particularly of the teats. This in some
cases shows itself in the form of excoriations or sores, or small 'cracks
or chaps, on the teats, and very troublesome they are. The discharge
likewise from these cracks mingles with the milk. The cow
suffers much pain in the act of milking, and is often unmanageable.
Many a cow has been ruined, both as a quiet and a plentiful milker,
by bad management when her teats have been sore. It is folly to
have recourse to harsh treatment, to compel her to submit to the in-
fliction of pain in the act of milking ; she will only become more violent,
and probably become a kicker for life ; if by soothing and kind
treatment she cannot 'e induced to stand, nothing else will effect it.
She will also form a aabit of retaining her milk, which will very,
speedily and very materially reduce its quantity. The teats should
be fomented with warm water, in order to clean them and get rid of
a portion of the hardened scabbiness about them, the continuance of
which is the cause of the greatest pain in the act of milking ; and
after the milking, the teats should be dressed with the following
ointment :—Take an ounce of yellow wax, and three of lard, melt
them together, and when they begin to get cool, well rub "in a
quarter of an ounce of sugar of lead and a drachm of alum finely
powdered.
GARGET, OR SORE BAG.
Too often, however, the inflammation assumes another and worse