340 DAIRYING COWS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT 



secondary costive tendency of the salts. This practice may 

 be repeated. All the foregoing treatment is directed to the 

 reducing of the plethoric condition of the blood, and the 

 keeping of the digestive system in good order, without at the 

 same time doing anything to permanently reduce the natural 

 flow of milk after calving. The calf, in all cases of danger, 

 should be allowed to suck the cow for the first three days, 

 and the bag during that time should not be drawn. 



A successful treatment which was in use before the close 

 of last century is that of pumping various solutions into 

 the udder, as some authorities suppose to destroy injurious 

 organism, but according to others to check the reabsorption 

 of milk substances or their deleterious products into the 

 circulation of the cow and thereby to prevent the abnormal 

 condition which induces apoplexy. 1 Iodide of potassium and 

 various other fluids have been used, with good immediate 

 effects, in the majority of cases, although the Report of the 

 U.S.A. Department of Agriculture records 17 to 25 per 

 cent, of deaths under the treatment. In this country many 

 animals which after treatment recovered from the acute 

 stage, pined and died a few months later, and others never 

 regained their original milking capacity. The introduction 

 of oxygen or atmospheric air by the rough - and - ready 

 means of a bicycle pump without sterilisation, has also been 

 attended with beneficial results ; but to make a certainty 

 of success in the operation, it is necessary to carry it out 

 with the greatest care. To this end, common air, which was 

 first recognised by Anderson of Skanderbora as the best 

 medium to use, requires to be sterilised and heated, and about 

 a half-pint of it gently passed into each quarter of the udder, 

 which should then be slightly kneaded, so that the air may 

 penetrate by the larger milk ducts through which the milk 

 drains from the secreting glands of the udder. The operation, 

 which should take place under the strictest sanitary precau- 

 tions, may have to be performed a second, and even a third, 

 time. Herbert Watney, M.D., of Buckhold, Pangbourne, 

 Berks, has perfected the original instrument used, and as the 

 air-injection process when properly applied is of immense 



1 This treatment was introduced by Veterinary Surgeon Schmidt, 

 who about 1898 discovered the effects of udder injections, and the 

 relation between the udder and the disease. He used I dram of iodide 

 to i quart of water. 



