127 



possible, and, when working along, felt a cord outside the bowel. I 

 gave it three gentle pulls, when it broke ; the animal got immediate 

 relief, and did well. 



309. Before going any further, I must add a word of caution, which 

 is, never to horn gruel into an animal recovering from an illness, as is 

 too frequently done. If the patient will drink gruel, milk, or cold 

 water, give it, and entice it to eat with all sorts of tit-bits of food — 

 oat-sheaf for preference, wheat, or barley-straw — so as to induce 

 chewing the cud, which the horning in of nutriment is the very best 

 thing to prevent and therefore retards recovery. Again, while 

 injections are very serviceable in bowel complaints in the horse, they 

 are of little or no use to cattle. 



310. Diarrhoea, or Scour, is acute, chronic, and mtermitteni, and a 

 very common complaint in cattle. It is due to a variety of causes, 

 such as eating frosted turnips, coarse indigestible or wet grasses, or 

 from worms, liver flukes, and scrofula, or tubercolosis. Young cattle, 

 rising two years old, suffer most, in which case the common cause is 

 turning them out on to grass in wet autumns, or on to oat-stubble, 

 where the oats have been shaken and have germinated on the ground. 

 These corn growths are very dangerous both to young cattle and sheep, 

 and should be avoided, as they harbour the ova of intestinal and other 

 worms. The crowns, or shells, of the temporary teeth not coming off 

 at their proper time is also another great inducement to diarrhoea in 

 young stock. The mouth should therefore be examined, and the shells 

 removed, (Lecture VII., Teeth). Worms — the strongylus contortus, found 

 in the lining membrane of the fourth stomach and intestines — and 

 flukes found in the liver, — constitute other chief causes of scour ; and 

 this arises through animals being turned out on to strong, wet lands 

 in summer and autumn. Derangement and Disease of the liver 

 of various kinds are often also the means of producing scour. So, 

 seeing that there is such a multitude of causes, it is of the greatest 

 importance to the owner, as well as to the veterinary surgeon, to find 

 the cause, and treat accordingly. 



