DISEASES OF CATTLE 467 



WOUNDS. 



It is probably not going too far to say that as a general rule 

 wounds of the bovine species, unless sufficiently serious to endanger 

 the animal's life, are left uncared for. The poor suffering creatures 

 are too often, even in fly time, left to endure untold torture from 

 wounds not at first of much importance, but which, from the con- 

 stant irritation caused by flies, dirt, etc., often develop into hideous, 

 unhealthy sores, which can not fail, even when they do heal, to leave 

 extensive and lasting blemishes as records of the owner's thriftless- 

 ness and inhumanity. 



The comparatively low market value of all but the full-blood and 

 pedigreed animal precludes an owner (save in a few exceptional 

 cases, inspired by a higher than ordinary sense of humanity) from 

 entertaining professional assistance. It is more than doubtful 

 whether the suffering creature does not go from bad to worse when 

 its case is made over to the tender mercies of the ignorant local cow- 

 leech, to whom wolf in the tail is a terrifying living presence and 

 hollow horn a solid fact, and whose sole claim to erudition in such 

 matters consists of conceited ability to manufacture on scientific pre- 

 scriptions an artificial substitute for the cud supposed to be lost. 



There is yet another class of owners who entertain a blind belief 

 in liniments and patent nostrums, many of which are not only an 

 unnecessary expense, but may by their very action retard rather than 

 expedite the process by which nature repairs the injured tissues, ten- 

 dons, and bony structure. 



It should always be borne in mind that although some applica- 

 tions are stimulating, and therefore serve as a useful ally in the proc- 

 ess of restoration, it is, after all, to nature we must look to renovate 

 the injured parts, and all that the most skillful can do is to aid her 

 intelligently by combating those conditions which are calculated to 

 interfere with her beneficent endeavors. All that the most suitable 

 applications can accomplish in the case of wounds is, in the first 

 place, to prevent the access of those poisonous germs which exist in 

 the surroundings of the animal, such as the soil and the manure, 

 and, in the second place, when the process of repair is for some rea- 

 son temporarily inactive or altogether arrested, to incite that curative 

 inflammation which is the invariable method by which the cure is 

 effected. 



Some owners may urge that it has always been their practice to 

 use some shotgun prescription that has earned for itself a reputa- 

 tion, because it was supposed to have routed a rash on the youngest 

 baby, and proved equally efficacious on a wire cut on the last-dropped 

 calf, without even pausing to think that either case might have done 

 equally well or even better if confided unanointed to the healing 

 hands of Nature. For the purposes of the present work wounds may 

 be divided into three classes: (1) Incised; (2) punctured; (3) 

 lacerated or contused. 



Incised Wound. This is one with clean-cut edges, and may be 

 either superficial or deep. In wounds of all descriptions there is 

 necessarily more or less bleeding, and this is especially liable to be 



