»^ 5 



GISTER. 



V^OL. VII. 



DECEMBER 31, 1839. 



No. 12. 



EDMUND ,RU F'F 1 N, EDJT!OIl A N t)k.' P.R.@P.R I E T OR , 



DISEASKS PKCULIAR TO CATTLIi:. REBIE- 

 DIES. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Mobile, JSfov.Mh, 1839.^ 

 Dear Sir — In answer lo your call tor inlbr- 

 mat,ioii, touching tlie diseases of cattle, Ibllowing 

 the comsijunicaiion ol' W. J. Dupuy; pernriit n)e 

 to refer him and any others iliat may desire such 

 information, to a treatise on cattle, written by W, 

 Youatt, of London. The title page of the book 

 is as Ibllovvs: "Library of Useliii Knovvledge. 

 Cattle, their breeds, management, and diseases; 

 with an index. Published under the superinten- 

 dence of tlie Society Ibr the Ditfusion of Useful 

 Knowledge. Philadelphia: Grisg and Elliott, 9 

 North Fourth Street, 1836." The title page is 

 also embellished with a w-ood cut of the head of 

 Firby, Lord Alihorp's hull. I have been inform- 

 ed that a treatise on the horse, by the same author, 

 has been republished in this country by the same 

 publishers, as the one on cattle above referred to, 

 but of this, [ cannot speak positively, as 1 liav.e 

 not been able to obtain it. 1 have. the treatise on 

 cattle, and I have not a doubt that it is the best 

 on that subject in the English language, it con-, 

 tains a fund of knowledge Itighly valuable to ag- 

 riculiurists, and to all such as take any interest in 

 cattle. Mr. Dupuy remarks upon tlie diversity of 

 opinion that prevails as to the nature and causes 

 of" the disease of which he is speaking. I am sa- 

 tisfied that the disease is bilious fever in its oitli- 

 nary form ; and udien it assumes the character of 

 an epidemic ; attacking whole herds, it then an- 

 swers to the more malignant forms of that disease, 

 as the congestive fever and the yellow fever. The 

 nature of the disease being understood, the causes 

 that produce it may be the more readily perceived, 

 and the remedies more appropriately employed. 

 The causes are various, as are those that produce 

 that disease in the human being, and act with 

 greater force on cattle than man. Cattle are more 

 limited in the kinds of food they take, they are 

 more complicated in their digestive organs, less 

 adapted to change of climate, and indeed change 

 of any kind, they are of delicate constituiion, and 

 are consequently acted on with more force by 

 causes that would disturb health, than man would 

 be. Exposure to dry hot weather or hot wet 

 weather, bad water; bad food, rich stimulating 

 food, especially when the animal is fat and pletho- 

 ric, a change of habit, consequent on a change of 

 location and management; each of these and a 

 hundred other causes miglitin their turn be rightly 

 assigned as the proximate cause of the disease, so 

 that it is not lo be wondered at, that there are di- 

 verse opinions as to the cause. I have had seve- 

 ral post morifem examinations of cattle that died 

 with it, and found the liver enlarged, and the sys- 

 tem generally suffused with bile, particularly about 

 the region of the kidneys, they having a tendency 

 to inflamation. 1 found the " manifold " in a great- 

 er or less degree of constipation, and the smaller 

 intestines generally emptj'. These latter symp- 

 loms, tlie state of the kidneys, &c., are effects 

 Vor.. Vfl— 89 



ftorp the feVer. 1 have learned too, from some in- 

 'tellicrent butchers, that the enlargement of the liv- 

 er and the general bilious symptoms are observa- 

 ble in very many of the western cattle that they 

 kill, though there be no external indications of ill 

 health; and as the warm weather approaches, they 

 kill them ofi as last as possible, knowing the risk 

 they run by attempting to keep them. 



The remedy is blood-letting, purging and dieting. 

 Bleeding must be employed only in the early 

 staircs ol" the disease, and then largely — from one 

 to two gallons, and more may be saliily taken, ac- 

 cording as the strength of the animal and the 

 stale of the pulse may indicate. The purging 

 must be employed at all stages, till the constipa- 

 tion is overcome, and a free passage established. 

 Ee not deceived here, one symptom of the disease 

 is a lax state of the bowels, and a frequent effort 

 to void the feces while the "maniplies" is yet in a 

 state of constipation. This accounts for the empty 

 state of the smaller intestines that I alluded to 

 above. One pound to one and a half of Epsom salts, 

 dissolved in a little over its own weight of warm 

 water, is a dose lor a grown animal, and may be 

 repeated in half pound doses every four hours, 

 till it operates. I have given a quart bottle of 

 castor, linseed, or sweet oil, as I had them conve- 

 nient, at a dose, and continued with salts till they 

 operated. But prevention is better than cure ; then 

 take care to know what were the habits and man- 

 agement and food of the animal previously, and 

 depart as little fiom them as possible ; keep it out 

 of the hot sun, and if it goes out to graze only let 

 it go in the cool of the day ibr a short time ; let it 

 have plenty of pure water, give it salt frequently 

 and give it a moderate supply of food ; aim not at 

 keeping it fat, but only in living order. It were 

 even better to be thin so it keep healthy, until it 

 get acclimated. See that it ruminates, that it 

 sweats at the nose, that the feces become not hard, 

 dark and glazed, nor thin and in diminished quan- 

 tities. Check the beginnings cf evil by a timely 

 dose of medicine. 



My experience is, that all cattle, whether they 

 come from the north or west, or from Europe, are 

 equally subject to the disease; and those only sur- 

 vive that are treated with the strictest attention to 

 their food, their drink, and the avoidance of ex- 

 posure to the sun in grazing at large. Cows are 

 more subject to sickness than bulls, the safest and 

 cheapest way of improving a stock is by breeding 

 on the native cows with imported bulls. But I 

 designed to refer to a written treatise, instead of 

 writing one. Respectfully, 



Geo. E. Holt. 



[We have long possessed the English edition 

 of both the works referred to in the foregoing 

 communication, and from one of them on " The 

 Horse," made large extracts for republication in 

 the Farmers' Register. They both are excellent 

 treatises ; and from the reputation of Mr. Youatt, 

 \ht author, we have no doubt but that the portion 



