STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 761 



slowly and imperceptibly increases until the symptoms I have 

 described attract attention. 



Cattle from Ireland are more subject to this complaint than 

 othei'S; they are brought on board vessels, crowded together in 

 the hulls or on the decks, and on reaching land travel usually on 

 foot considerable distances to markets for sale. 



My milcli cows are housed during winter in stalls of more than 

 ordinary warmtli, and are turned out to grass in the month of 

 May, which in the season of 1856 was unusually wet and change- 

 able; the pleuro has prevailed among them since July. At the 

 commencement of this illness, the feeder states that up to the 

 meal before the cow has eaten up her food, given her usual yield 

 of milk, and shown every s3'mptom of healtli; thus, tliough the 

 disease has hitlierto been imperceptible and of slow progress, it 

 arrives at a stage to cause a sudden interruption of the functions, 

 the cow's appetite is gone, and her yield of milk diminished to 

 one-half of what she gave 12 hours before. 



On applying the ear to tlie side of the animal you distinctly 

 hear the air rushing past, but at the very early stage, as far as the 

 ear can detect, with little or no impediment; the inhalations be- 

 come frequent and labored. Ou opening the vein, if you place 

 your finger in the stream of blood, a hut sensation is imparted : 

 if you again place your finger in the stream towards the close of 

 bleeding, the heat is sensibly diminished; the color of the blood 

 also undergoes a perceptible change from a dark to a redder or 

 brighter color. 



A considerati(jn of these symptoms seems to denote a greater 

 consumption of carbon, for the combustion or oxidation of which 

 it seems probable that the animal is prompted to exert her organs 

 of respirati(m for the supply of the necessary air, whilst the blood 

 at the same time is in an impure state. At this stage immediate 

 relief seems requisite to ])revent or arrest damage from over-exer- 

 tion; with this object I resort to bleeding as the speediest means 

 of subduing the fever and lowering the circulati«jn, Tartar emetic 

 and dii^italis are known also to have the eflert of retarding the 

 cireulati<»n and loweiiiii^ the j>ulse. It will be observed tliat I 

 apj»ly these necessarily in the very early stages; spirits of nitre 

 and Hour of sul]>luir, which are c<^ntinued nuieh longer, stimulate 

 the secretions, and thus tend to 2)urify the blood and the system. 



