THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 145 



exclusively on hay and straw — very poor fodder some many 

 exclaim, yet in the course of ten months the same creature 

 yielded 4,921 quarts of milk ; and during a single month, after 

 calving, she gave 620 quarts, and the least she gave during the 

 winter months was 562 quarts. 



A pig will grow fat on small quantities of various kinds of 

 food and still lose flesh when allowed to gorge himself with 

 the same. Many swine in the vicinity of coal mines, consume 

 both coal and charcoal, and little else, yet they grow fat. 



Evidences can be furnished to show that both the superior 

 and inferior orders of creation might subsist on a very small 

 quantity of food without danger. Shipwrecked mariners have 

 been known to subsist several weeks without food ; and there 

 is a man now residing in this State who during a period of 32 

 days never tasted food. The sleeping man of Rochester, is 

 another example ; and a case is recorded in one of our medical 

 journals showing that an individual once lived for several 

 months on nothing but pure water. 



As regards cattle they form no exception to this peculiarity ; 

 we might introduce evidence convincing and positive of their 

 ability to endure the privations of hunger, and at the same 

 time show that they suffer very little from its effects. A single 

 case will serve to illustrate this. I once treated a case of 

 tetanus, lock-jaw. The subject never tasted food during a 

 period of 1 6 days ; on the seventeeth, the masseters relaxed and 

 the faculty of swallowing returned. At this period we might 

 suppose him to be " hungry as a hear" yet on offering him a 

 few oats, he did not appear to be very ravenous, and partook 

 of food subsequently offered him as if nothing had happened. 



These are extreme cases, yet they go to show that there is 

 no cause for alarm because an animal happens to be " off his 

 feed,'' once in a while. Such condition may ultimately prove" 

 salutary, affording the stomach and its associate organs, time 

 to rest from their herculean labors. 



The fact that most of our adult animals, get more food than 

 they need, has been demonstrated by analysis of their excre- 

 ment; Avhich has been found to contain a large amount of 

 13 



