The American Reformed Cattle Doctor Part 19

Boiling water sufficient to make it of the consistence of thin gruel.

If there is great difficulty of breathing, add half a tea-spoon of lobelia to the above, and repeat the dose night and morning. Linseed or marshmallow tea is a valuable auxiliary in the treatment of this disease. The animal should be comfortably housed, and the legs kept warm by friction with coa.r.s.e straw.

INFLAMMATION OF GLANDS.

There are numerous glandular bodies distributed over the animal structure. Those to which the reader's attention is called are, first, the parotid, situated beneath the ear; secondly, the sub-lingual, beneath the tongue; lastly, the sub-maxillary, situated just within the angle of the jaw. They are organized similarly to other glands, as the kidneys, &c., possessing arteries, veins, lymphatics, &c., which terminate in a common duct. They have also a ramification of nerves, and the body of the gland has its own system of arterial vessels and absorbents, which are enclosed by a serous membrane. They produce a copious discharge of fluid, called saliva. Its use is to lubricate the mouth, thereby preventing friction; also to lubricate the food, and a.s.sist digestion.

Inflammation of either of these glands may be known by the heat, tenderness, enlargement, and difficulty of swallowing. They are usually sympathetically affected, as in hoose, catarrh, influenza, &c., and generally resume their natural state when these maladies disappear.

_Treatment._--In the inflammatory stage, warm teas of marshmallows, or slippery elm, and poultices of the same, are the best means yet known to reduce it; they relax constricted or obstructed organs, and by being directly applied to the parts affected, the more speedily and effectually is the object accomplished. Two or three applications of some relaxing poultice will be all that is needed; after which, apply

Olive oil, or goose grease, 1 gill.

Spirits of camphor, 1 ounce.

Oil of cedar, 1 ounce.

Vinegar, half a gill.

Mix.

_Another._

Pyroligneous acid, 2 ounces.

Beef's gall, 1 gill.

Cayenne, 1 tea-spoonful.

To be rubbed around the throat as occasion may require. All hard or indigestible food will be injurious.

LOSS OF CUD.

Loss of Cud is a species of indigestion, and may be brought on by the animal's eating greedily of some food to which it has been unaccustomed.

Loss of cud and loss of appet.i.te are synonymous.

_Compound for Loss of Cud._

Golden seal, powdered, 1 ounce.

Caraway, " 2 ounces.

Cream of tartar, half an ounce.

Powdered poplar bark, 2 ounces.

Mix. Divide into six powders, and give one every four hours in a sufficient quant.i.ty of camomile tea.

COLIC.

Colic is occasioned by a want of physiological power in the organs of digestion, so that the food, instead of undergoing a chemico-vital process, runs into fermentation, by which process carbonic acid gas is evolved.

_Symptoms._--The animal is evidently in pain, and appears very restless; it occasionally turns its head, with an anxious gaze, to the left side, which seems to be distended more than the right; there is an occasional discharge of gas from the mouth and a.n.u.s.

_Treatment._--Give the following carminative:--

Powdered aniseed, half a tea-spoonful.

" cinnamon, " "

To be given in a quart of spearmint tea, and repeated if necessary.

_Another._

Powdered a.s.safoetida, half a tea-spoon.

Thin gruel of slippery elm, 2 quarts.

Oil of aniseed, 20 drops.

To be given at a dose.

If the animal suffers much pain, apply fomentations to the belly, and give the following injection:--

Powdered ginger, half an ounce.

Common salt, 1 table-spoonful.

Hot water, 1 gallon.

SPASMODIC COLIC.

This affection may be treated in the same manner as flatulent colic, aided by warmth and moisture externally. The author has in many cases cured animals of spasmodic colic with a little peppermint tea, brisk friction upon the stomach and bowels, and an injection of warm water; whereas, had the animals been compelled to swallow the usual amount of gin, saleratus, castor oil, salts, and other nauseous, useless drugs, they would probably have died. The reader, especially if he is an advocate of the popular poisoning and blood-letting system, may ask, What good can a little simple peppermint tea accomplish? We answer, Nature delights in simples, and in all her operations invites us to follow her example. The fact is, warm peppermint tea, although in the estimation of the learned it is not ent.i.tled to any confidence as a therapeutic agent, yet is an efficient anti-spasmodic in the hands of reformers and common-sense farmers. It is evident that if any changes are made in the symptoms, they ought to be for the better; yet under the heroic practice they often grow worse.

CONSTIPATION.

In constipation there is a retention of the excrement, which becomes dry and hard. It may arise from derangement of the liver and other parts of the digestive apparatus: at other times, there is a loss of equilibrium between the mucous and external surface, the secretion of the former being deficient, and the external surface throwing off too much moisture in the form of perspiration. In short, constipation, in nine cases out of ten, is only a symptom of a more serious disorder in some important function. The use of powerful purges is at all times attended with danger, and in very many cases they fall short of accomplis.h.i.+ng the object. Mr. Youatt tells us that "a heifer had been feverish, and had refused all food during five days; and four pounds of Epsom salts, and the same quant.i.ty of treacle, and three fourths of a pint of castor oil, and numerous injections, had been administered before any purgative effect could be produced." Several cases have come under the author's notice where large doses of aloes, salts, and castor oil had been given without producing the least effect on the bowels, until within a few minutes of the death of the animal. If the animal ever recovers from the dangerous effects resulting from powerful purges, it is evident that the delicate membranes lining the alimentary ca.n.a.l must lose their energy and become torpid. All mechanical irritants--for purges are of that cla.s.s--divert the fluids of the body from the surface and kidneys, producing watery discharges from the bowels. This may be exemplified by a person taking a pinch of snuff; the irritating article comes in contact with the mucous surfaces: they endeavor to wash off the offending matter by secreting a quant.i.ty of fluid; this, together with what is forced through the membranes in the act of sneezing, generally accomplishes the purpose. A constant repet.i.tion of the vile habit renders the parts less capable of self-defence; they become torpid, and lose their natural power of resisting encroachments; finally, the altered voice denotes the havoc made on the mucous membrane. This explains the whole _modus operandi_ of artificial purging; and although, in the latter case, the parts are not adapted to sneezing, yet there is often a dreadful commotion, which has destroyed many thousands of valuable animals. An eminent professor has said that "purgatives, besides being uncertain and uncontrollable, often kill from the dangerous debility they produce." The good results that sometimes appear to follow the exhibition of irritating purges must be attributed to the sanative action of the const.i.tution, and not to the agent itself; and the life of the patient depends, in all cases, on the existing ability of the vital power to counteract the effects of purging, bleeding, poisoning, and blistering.

The author does not wish to give the reader occasion to conclude that purgatives can be entirely dispensed with; on the contrary, he thinks that in many cases they are decidedly beneficial, when given with discretion, and when the nature of the disease requires them; yet even such cases, too much confidence should not be placed on them, so as to exclude other and sometimes more efficient remedies, which come under the head of laxatives, aperients, &c.

_Treatment._--If costiveness is suspected to be symptomatic of some derangement, then a restoration of the general health will establish the lost function of the bowels. In this case, purges are unnecessary; the treatment will altogether depend on the symptoms. For example, suppose the animal constipated; the white of the eye tinged yellow, head drooping, and the animal is drowsy, and off its feed; then give the following:--