

DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. III. 



BOSTON, SATURDAY, DEC. 6, 1851. 



NO. 25. 



RAYNOLDS & NOURSE, Proprietors. 

 Office. ...GluiNCY Hall. 



S. W. COLE, 1 

 SIMON BROWN, 5^" 



ITOBS. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, 



) Associate 

 3 Editors. 



BLOODY MILK. 



The inquiry made a few weeks since by one of 

 our correspondents, "What causes cows to give 

 bloody milk, and what will cure it," has led to 

 some replies, and among them, one from a corres- 

 pondent at Bristol, Vermont, which will be found 

 in another column. Cows being the most profita- 

 ble part of our farm stock, their diseases become 

 important questions of interest as well as humani- 

 ty. We have therefore deemed the subject worthy 

 of some extended remarks. It would be as sensi- 

 ble to take a slow coach through the mud, to visit 

 a sick friend at a distance, when a fast car is run- 

 nintr in the same direction, as it is to adhere to old 

 modes of administering medicines under the new 

 light which has dawned upon the whole materia- 

 medica. The world is progressing in everything, 

 and we may as well be out of it altogether, as not 

 progress with it. Cold water and pure air were 

 once refused the patient in fevers; but who but an 

 insane man would think of refusing them now. 

 If it was once supposed that a certain disease was 

 induced by a general derangement of the whole 

 system, it might have been proper to prescribe 

 garget as a remedy, in the absence of any certain 

 knowledge as to what was required; but now, 

 when it is well known that the same disease is lo- 

 cal, affecting only one part, while all the rest is in 

 health, it becomes not only useless, but cruel, to 

 administer substances which will not affect the 

 disease, but cause additional pain to the suffering 

 animal. 



When our correspondent, however, informs us 

 that he has witnessed the effects of a specific for 

 more than half a century, with the highest grati- 

 fication, we really feel a diffidence about remark- 

 ing upon his letter at all; being almost persuaded 

 that an observation extended through so many 

 years, must be correct in its conclusions, and that 

 a practice adhered to so long, must also be a safe 

 one. Indeed, if we were not sure that popular 

 errors had run through a cycle of years far out- 



numbering his "half century," and thai new light 

 is constantty dawning upon the pathological treat- 

 ment of diseases, we should bow in deference to 

 his large experience, and raise no warning voice. 

 But we cannot hold ourselves harmless in sanction- 

 ing error by silence, any more than to propagate 

 it by open declaration. That the subjects dis- 

 cussed in these columns may not mislead, the ed- 

 itors write only from close personal observation or 

 actual experience; or, when the matter introduced 

 is foreign to their particular province, they refer to 

 those who aie competent and skilful on the subject- 

 matter in question. We have long had our doubts 

 of the propriety of using powerful drenches, ca- 

 thartics, and prostrating depletions, on our do- 

 mestic animals. Though they are our servants, 

 and subject to our will, we are bound to treat them 

 humanely. Rash experiments by inexperienced 

 persons, either with drug or knife, are cruel and 

 inhuman, and it shall be our effort to discourage 

 and discountenance them with whatever influence 

 we may exert. 



Cows not unfrequently give bloody milk. In 

 our own stock there are cases of it every year. 

 It continues for a day or two and then subsides, 

 without administering medicine, or making any 

 external application except bathing the udder in 

 cold water. It is nci-er accompanied by any of 

 thesymptons called Garget; there being no swell- 

 ling, inflammation, or soreness of the udder appa- 

 rent. We are, therefore, inclined to think the 

 "bloody milk" disease, and the disease occasioning 

 a swollen and inflamed udder, and frequently ac- 

 companied by hard lumps, to be widely unlike each 

 other, and originating in different causes. 



In order to be able to gain all the information 

 which could be readily come at on this suhjecty 

 we called upon Dr. Dadd, a Veterinary Surgeon 

 of much experience in this city, and he stated to 

 us that a mixture of blood with the cow's milk 

 might result from various causes, but that the 

 most frequent are local inflammation of the mam- 



