THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 175 



quantity of food and drink must be diminished. She should 

 also have free access to salt, and occasionally a tablespoonful 

 or so of phosphate of lime may be sprinkled over her fodder. 



SYMPTOMS OF PREGNANCY. 



A cow in healthy condition will be in heat (a state of men- 

 struation), about once a month, this lasts for a period of four 

 days more or less. 



About three or four months after conception has taken place, 

 the belly is enlarged, and on making pressure on the right 

 flank the motions of a live foetus can be distinctly felt. Preg- 

 nancy may be determined earlier than this by auscultation (the 

 art of diagnosis by listening to the sounds of the heart), the 

 beating of the foetal heart can be distinctly heard ; the ear 

 should be applied to the right flank. 



DROPSY OF THE WOMB. 



This affection generally prevails among aged cows in the 

 latter period of pregnancy ; the causes of it are, perhaps, ob- 

 scure ; yet it may be attributable, like other dropsies, to a de- 

 bilitated condition of the system, and an impoverished state of 

 the blood. 



The symptoms noticed in this affection ai*e as follows. An 

 unhealthy and debilitated state of the animal ; visible mem- 

 branes, pale and watery ; a pendulous and much enlarged con- 

 dition of the abdomen ; spinal column curved in a downward 

 direction ; and the animal when down is observed to rise with 

 difiiculty. 



It often happens that in dropsy of the uterus, the walls of 

 the abdomen are ruptured and the fluid escapes into the cellu- 

 lar tissue beneath the common integuments ; this is readily de- 

 tected by an unnatural tumefaction or swelling in some part of 

 the abdominal region. My usual practice in a case of this 

 character is to puncture the integument, and allow the fluid to 

 escape. I then direct that the animal have a few doses of the 

 following : — 



