128 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



while we can alleviate some of the sufferings of the affected cattle, a 

 verytritiiiiji- nieiisure of success atteiuls the most assiduous nursing and 

 medication. Bleeding has been, in some parts, a favorite remedy ; and 

 I have known one animal recover, either in conseciiience or in spite of 

 the remedy. Purgatives have been freely and fairly tried, with good 

 result in very few instances, and with depressing and killing inliuences 

 in many more. 



The "red water" of cows in Scotland is often cured by opiates, which 

 check the discharge of blood; and with alcoholic stinudauts in modera- 

 tion, with the free use of mucilaginous drinks. I have tried the same 

 treatment in splenic fever, Avith little or no success. Page after page 

 miaht be rilled with notes on the administration of nitrate and of chlo- 

 rate of potash, iodide of potassium, quinine, salts of iron, sesquicarbo- 

 nate of ammonia, Epsom or Glauber's salts, sulphur, ginger, calomel, 

 soap, and oil ; and even guano from the goose cote has been said " fre- 

 quently to effect a cure, given in doses of one quart, until a thorough 

 evacuation is produced." A reporter from Woodson County, Kansas, 

 says this is "a sovereign and unfailing remedy for the dry murrain." 

 None of these agents (and some have been extolled as specific) have 

 affected the steady progress and fatality of the disease. 



Shelter, protection from flies, linseed or flaxseed tea, friction of the 

 limbs, and injections, are humane, and, to ff trifling extent, useful expe- 

 dients. I have seen coavs return to nearly their full quantity of milk on 

 such treatment, with the aid of half-ounce doses of sulphuric ether, in 

 four ounces of the solution of the acetate of ammonia and a quart of 

 water, given thrice daily. Relief has been afforded by giving an ounce 

 of tinctm^e of opium for the first day or two; but to enter further into 

 the history of experiments on this point is to recount a history of failures 

 such as the worlcfts accustomed to, in speaking of the medical treatment 

 of human cholera and small-pox, or rinderpest and the deadly forms of 

 anthrax in cattle. 



THE PKEVENTIOI^r OF SPLENIC FEVER. 



The main object of the investigation which has brought to light the 

 facts noted in the foregoing pages, has been the discovery of means 

 wherebv the direct and the indirect losses sustained for several vears 

 past, but especially in 1868, may not again harass American farmers, 

 and injure the traders in Texan cattle. Hitherto the ouly measures sug- 

 gested, and very partially adopted, have consisted either in prohibiting 

 the importation of southern cattle into certain States, or portions of 

 States; and, in one instance, in preventing their introduction only dur- 

 ing the summer months. 



Stringent lawshave failed to avert the most disastrous and wide-spread 

 losses; and while on the one haml persons interested in the Texan trade 

 have justified their inattention to legal restrictions, by declaring them 

 one and all unconstitutional, instances have not been wanting of mob 



