322 



animal is feeding, milking, and chewing the cud, I recommend leaving 

 the placenta alone until the sixth or seventh day in winter, or the fifth or 

 sixth day in summer, (rolling, however, the membranes which are 

 outside into a knot, to be out of the milker's way,) and then taking them 

 away as described above. After removing the placenta from the mare 

 and cow, I generally inject into the womb five or six quarts of tepid water 

 containing one ounce of tincture of iron, which is a good antiseptic. 

 Notwithstanding the decayed and fcetid condition of the membranes, 

 I have never yet seen a cleansing struck with fly or maggot. 



790. Dropping from Retention of the Second Cleansing. — 



Cases are met with where the afterbirth comes away all right a few 

 hours after calving, but in the course of from two to six days the animal 

 is found lying down and unable to rise, yet it feeds, chews the cud, and 

 milks fairly well ; the breathing is quick and heavy, and the temperature 

 is normal, but still the patient cannot get up. The vulva is puckered 

 up and quite dry, and no discharge is seen from the passage. This 

 condition is, by many, considered to be milk fever, but the loss of power 

 is through reflex nervous action, and is really due to the too sudden 

 closing of the neck of the womb, behind which the discharge or second 

 cleansing collects and is retamed. Treatment — Give a good dose of 

 opening medicine, say one pound of Epsom salts and two ounces of 

 ginger in a quart of treacle gruel, to which add one pint of linseed oil, 

 and further apply a strong mustard poultice over the loins and clothe 

 the body, when, in the course of 24 hours the animal wnll probably 

 discharge from the womb a quantity of bloody, shmy fluid, after which 

 it becomes all right. At times the retention of the second cleansing 

 sets up septic fever. 



791. Septic Fever attacks animals more particularly in the early 

 spring months, when east winds prevail. About three or four weeks 

 after calving, the cow is noticed to be losing flesh and getting into a 

 low and debilitated condition, with tucking up of the belly, falling off" 

 in milk, having little or no appetite, and only occasionally chewing the 

 cud, while the bowels are constipated, the dung bemg hard and dark 

 coloured, the lips of the vulva are also puckered up, and of a dirty 



