THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 261 



local agents, as some have done, in view of mitigating sympa- 

 thetic local pain, would it not be more in accordance with reason 

 and science to administer medicinal agents, such as are calcu- 

 lated to restore the liver to a natural physiological condition ? 



A man who thus ignorantly prescribes, falls irto the same 

 error with him who would refer all diseases of neat stock to 

 their horns or tails, merely because the parts are not in their 

 natural physiological condition, owing, as I have said, to actual 

 disease seated -jlsewhere. Thus the symptoms are mistaken 

 for the disease, and the treatment, in so far as boring, sawing 

 off horns, and curtailing the caudal appendage is concerned, 

 is highly injurious, barbarous, and, in these enlightened times, 

 deplorable. 



It requires no argument to convince many men that horn- 

 ail is a very prevalent disease, for the false doctrine has been 

 promulgated, and has received attention from men whose do- 

 mains extend from Maine to California. The error has been 

 sown broadcast, and has acquired such hold on the miLds of 

 some that it will take many years to root out the evil. One 

 writer on this subject, believing that horn-ail is»a sort of 

 national disease, recommends the barn-yard faculty (for no 

 regular physician will heed his advice) to cany gimlets in 

 their pockets, so that they may be armed and equipped to en- 

 counter and subdue that which is more imaginary than real. 



I have made examinations of the bodies of cattle, subsequent 

 to death, said to have died of horn-ail. Among them were evi- 

 dent traces of softening of the brain ; and this is a feature of 

 disease very often present, as I shall attempt to show, in many 

 of the so called cases of horn-ail. Softening of the brain is a 

 disease of so grave a character, that any morbid symptoms 

 attending the same, as local heat or coldness of horns, might 

 compare in the ratio of a molehill placed beside a mountain. 



Softening of the brain is the ultimatum of a grave disease 

 occurring in that organ. And if the owners of live stock are 

 disposed to believe that horn difficulty is the most prepon- 

 deiant and alarming, and they can sleep soundly in the belief 

 that no danger threatens, then, " If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly 



