758 DISEASES AND ABNORMALITIES. 



The patient should be kept warm and comfortable, warm baths have 

 sometimes proved useful, as have also poultices of camomile flowers to 

 the abdomen, when symptoms of pain are manifested. 



CHAPTER X. 



Retention of Meconium. — Constipation. 



The contents of the intestines — the meconium — are generally expelled 

 immediately after birth, when the umbilical circulation is first interrupted. 

 When the meconium is retained much longer it is abnormal ; and this 

 occurs more frequently with the foal, perhaps, than other creatures. The 

 prolonged retention of the meconium gives rise to constipation, and this 

 is often a serious condition. The animals in which it occurs are gener- 

 ally weakly, and not well developed. 



Cattses. 



Constipation is usually observed in foals which have been dropped in 

 February or March, and whose dams have been fed exclusively on dry 

 fodder during the winter. This result is still more likely to follow if 

 the dams have been worked until near foaling-time. Their milk is then 

 deficient in those purgative qualities which are so necessary for the new- 

 born animal. It is the same with Cows which have been stall-fed all 

 the winter with dry food ; and the calves are almost certain to suffer 

 from retention of the meconium if deprived of the first milk of the Cow, 

 no matter whether the latter may have been properly fed. 



^ Symptoms. 



One or two days after birth, the foal appears to be uneasy, refuses to 

 suck, has tenesmus, makes efforts to defecate, shows symptoms of colic, 

 rolls on the ground, and often looks towards the abdomen ; the back is 

 arched, micturition is suspended, pulse and respiration frequent, the eyes 

 injected, and the teeth ground against each other. Enteritis sets in, and 

 death takes place in struggles and convulsions. 



The symptoms are similar in the calf : the abdomen is very much re- 

 tracted ; the respiration hurried ; back raised when the creature is stand- 

 ing, though it generally persists in lying ; it moans continually ; refuses 

 to suck ; and is very restless. 



Treatment. 



The preventive treatment consists in attending to the feeding and con- 

 dition of the pregnant animal some time before parturition. The young 

 creature should be fed on the first milk its parent gives. 



The curative treatment must be directed towards removing the meco- 

 nium from the intestines. This may be effected by giving a soap or oil 

 enema, or previously removing as much as is accessible to a well-oiled 

 finger. 



That which is beyond reach of the finger, Franck recommends to be 

 brought away by means of a flexible, but not too weak, noose of wire. 

 The Cow should have an abundance of fluid to drink, and this may be 

 rendered slightly laxative by the addition of cream of tartar or sulphate 

 of soda. 



