136 DISEASES OF YOUNG CALVES. 



and consisting principally of hay. This is a danj^erous complaint; 

 for there is not only obstruction usually in the manyplies^ or third 

 stomach, which is employed in rubbing down the hard fibrous food, 

 and now becomes overloaded and clogged, but the paunch itself is 

 generally filled with undige«|ted food, and rumination has ceased. 



Here again everything depends on diluting the hardened mass, and 

 opening the bowels. The first dose of medicine should consist of a 

 quarter of a pound of Epsom salts, dissolved in a gallon of warm 

 water. It will not be forgotten that by introducing the pipe a little 

 way, or far down the gullet, the medicine may be thrown at once into 

 the third and fourth stomachs, or into the first. If it is introduced 

 only a little way, and the pump worked gently, the fluid will pass 

 on through the canal at the base of the gullet, which was described 

 in the early part of the work, and enter the third stomach. Flowing 

 through this in considerable quantities, it will perhaps dissolve, and 

 wash out the hardened mass contained between the leaves of the 

 manyplies, while the salts will open the bowels, and by emptying 

 them solicit the food forward from the gorged stomachs. 



If, after the bowels have been well opened, rumination should not 

 return, it will be prudent to have recourse again to the stomach- 

 pump, the tube of which should now be pushed farther down the 

 gullet until it enters the paunch. Plenty of warm water being now 

 pumped in, and with some force, it will stir up the contents of the 

 paunch, and cause them to be disgorged into the canal leading to the 

 true stomach ; or vomiting will be excited, and the greater part of it 

 thus brought away. The stomach will probably act upon the little 

 that remains, rumination will again be established, and the animal 

 will speedily recover. 



There are few things so dangerous to young cattle as being thus 

 sapped or costive. It is the foundation of fever, and of many a 

 serious complaint. As soon as the dung is observed to be hard, a 

 mild dose of physic should be given to every calf. A little attention 

 to this would keep the breeding stock in good order ; and their pre- 

 servation, and health, and rapid thriving would abundantly repay the 

 little additional trouble and expense. Farmers in general, however, 

 are shamefully careless here ; and no notice is taken of half the dis- 

 eases under which their stock of every kind plainly and evidently 

 labour, until they are past all cure. It is also matter of general ob- 

 servation, that a calf that has a considerable tendency to costiveness 

 is slow in getting fat and preparing for the market. 



All cattle are subject to occasional costiveness, and which should 

 be removed as early as in the calf, as being the frequent root of much 

 evil. It is either one of the symptoms of the beast labouring under 

 inflammatory fever, or it lays the foundation for inflammatory fever. 

 A purge of Epsom salts, or even of common salt, if the other should 

 not be at hand, will not cost much, and would save the life of many 

 a beast : let not the farmer, however, follow up the farrier's practice 

 of giving a cordial drink two or three days after the physic, under 



