48 SPECIAL VETERINARY THERAPY 



have little or no trouble in calling to mind agents 

 which will reduce the temperature; most of us can 

 name a half-dozen with hardly a thought. But, let 

 some one ask us for something out of the materia 

 medica which will quickly and quite surely raise ani- 

 mal temperature ! That makes us think. 



Atropin will do this, will do it certainly and 

 promptly. Before I adopted this line of treatment, 

 my method in parturient paresis, after inflating the 

 udder, was to give from a quarter to a whole grain of 

 strychnin hypodermatically. 



I have now discarded the strychnin injection for 

 one of a quarter to a half grain of atropin sulphate. 

 The consequence is that where I used to make sev- 

 eral visits to these cases, hardly ever getting one to 

 arise short of six hours, I now remain with the case 

 just about two hours and nearly every time the cow 

 is on her feet before I drive away. Occasionally one 

 refuses to respond, but after using the treatment a 

 few times, it will be quite easy to pick out those cases. 

 Those in which the symptoms of coma remain over 

 an hour and are slow to brighten up will take a 

 somewhat longer time. A few cases will teach this. 



My method is to inflate the udder and then give 

 the atropin. When this is done, I have the animal 

 virtually smothered in all the blankets in the stable. 

 I take the temperature every fifteen minutes. As 

 soon as it approaches normal an attempt is made to 

 make the cow get up, assistance being given by the 

 tail. The quickest recovery I have obtained in this 

 manner was in one hour and thirty minutes. 



