Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

420 CATTLE.
siderably in size and form, and are filled with a purulent matter. In
the course of a few days a scab forms upon them, which peels off,
and the part underneath is sound. If the pustules are rubbed off in
the act of milking, or in any other way, small ulcers are left, which
are very sore, and sometimes difficult to heal.
The best treatment is washing and fomenting ; a dose of physic,
and the application of the ointment for sore teats recommended in
page 408. The cause, like that of many other pustular eruptions, is
unknown ; except that it is contagious, and is readily communicated
from the cow to the milker, if the hand be not quite sound, and from
the milker to other cows.
There is another kind of pustular eruption, of a more important
character, and with which the preceding one has been confounded.
It also consists of vesicles or bladders on the teats ; but they are
larger, round, with a little central depression ; they are filled at first
with a limpid fluid, which by degrees becomes opaque and purulent,
and each of them is surrounded by a broad circle* of inflammation.
This is more decidedly a constitutional disease than the former. The
cow exhibits evident symptoms of fever ; she does not feed well
sometimes she ceases to ruminate, and the secretion of milk is usual-
ly diminished.
These pustules go through a similar process with the former
ones—they dry up, and at length the scabs fall off, leaving th_e skin
beneath sound ; but if they are broken before this, the ulcers are
larger, deeper, of a more unhealthy character, and generally far more
difficult to heal. This is the genuine cow-pox.
The treatment is nearly the same, except that, being accompanied
by more constitutional disturbance, an aperient is more necessary,
and it may occasionally be prudent to abstract blood. The frequent
application of Goulard's lotion, with an equal portion of spirit of
wine, will, at least in the early stage of the ulcer, be preferable to
the ointment ; but better than this, and until the ulcers are beginning
to heal, will be the dilute solution of the chloride of lime. If
the teats are washed with this before the cow is milked, it will go
far toward preventing the communication of the disease.
The most interesting circumstance connected with this pustular
eruption is, that the persons on whom it appeared were, for a considerable
period, (it was once thought, during life,) protected from
the small-pox. This was known among farmers from time immemo-
rial. But to no one, whom experience had convinced of the active
protective power of the cow-pox, had it occurred to endeavor to as-
certain whether it might not be possible to propagate the affection
by innppulation from one human being to another, and thus communicate
security agajnst small-pox at will.
To the mind of Mr. Jenner, the probability of accomplishing this
first presented itself. He innoculatei", a boy with the matter taken
;