TUBERCULOSIS. 337 



TEEATMENT OF BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 



If the disease has passed beyond the very earliest stage, it is a 

 waste of time and money to treat animals suffering from tuber- 

 cular consumption. It is far better to slaughter and make the 

 best of them ; and in all cases it is better to make the animals 

 fit for the butcher by ceasing to milk them, giving fattening food, 

 such as oil-cake and good hay, avoiding grasses and roots, as 

 they tend to produce indigestion, diarrhoea, and an acid condition 

 of the digestive apparatus, and by administering cod liver oil in 

 such quantities as the animal may digest and assimilate — say 

 from six ounces to half a pint daily ; if purgation is not induced, 

 the latter quantity. The oil is best given mixed with lime 

 water, and small doses of oil of turpentine may also be added 

 with advantage, particularly if there be a tendency to indigestion, 

 tympanites, or diarrhoea. 



The following curative or preventive agents have been 

 recommended, — iodine (Williams), mercuric chloride (Herroun), 

 eucalyptus oil (M. Ball), salicylic acid (Griffiths), creasote 

 (various), inhalation of turpentine, hydrofluoric acid, &c. 

 (various), but so far these have proved uncertain ; paraffin has 

 also been recommended, but the results do not warrant the con- 

 tinuance of any medicinal treatment. 



I think the time has arrived when tubercular diseases ought 

 to be included in the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, and 

 that an endeavour should be made to prevent its increasing 

 frequency, even if it be found impossible to diminish it, or 

 stamp it out altogether. 



STRUMOUS ABSCESSES. 



In the Provisional Nomenclature of Diseases adopted by 

 the Royal College of Physicians, London, tubercular diseases 

 are considered under two heads, namely — (1.) Scrofula with 

 tubercle, sometimes a concomitant of internal tuberculosis ; and 

 (2.) Scrofula without tubercle. This latter condition is wit- 

 nessed in the sheep, in which the true tubercular nodule is 

 rarely developed. This ruminant, however, is prone to suffer 

 from strumous scrofulous abscesses in the submaxilliary, facial, 

 and parotidean regions, sometimes commencing in the connec- 

 tive tissue about the jaws, neck, and face, and involving the 

 lymphatic glands (strumous adenitis). 



