THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 265 



it. Hence, if an animal should be restored to health, after 

 having been compelled to submit to the fashionable barbarities 

 of horn-boring, that is no proof of the utility of the means 

 used. 



If we could only collect all the facts in the case of an animal 

 said to be the subject of horn-ail, we should probably discover 

 that in four cases out of five, the animal's stomach was the 

 seat of the original difficulty, for the stomach is more frequently 

 deranged than any other organ of the body, and it often occurs 

 in this -way : A man has a cow, an ox, or a lot of cattle, which 

 he intends to bring to market, in view of exchanging them 

 for dollars and cents. He puts them through (as the modems 

 have it) the fattening process, furnishing them with a supera- 

 bundance of carbon, in the form of meal and other nitrogenous 

 equivalents. The result is, an accumulation of adipose tissue ; 

 the animal becomes fat, and consequently plethoric. The accu- 

 mulation of fat offers an impediment to the free and full play of 

 the heart, lungs, and diaphragm ; and, should the subject be a 

 pregnant cow, she is liable, a few hours after the period of 

 parturition, to be attacked with milk or puerperal fever, or con- 

 vulsions. Therefore, the liability to disease in more important 

 structures than the horns, is a matter that I seriously urge 

 our itinerant cattle doctors to consider. 



Neat stock are often the subjects of catarrh, or " hoose^"* as 

 it is termed, nasal gleet, etc. In either case, a profuse discharge 

 occurs from the surface of the nasal membrane, extending to 

 the frontal sinuses, up to the very tip of some horns. This is 

 often called horn-ail, and the gimlet is brought into requisition, 

 and on withdrawing it, some of the ^^ matter'^ may possibly es- 

 cape from the orifice. Hence the gimlet is said to do good. This 

 I deny ; for the more rational way of favoring the discharge 

 of the matter, would be to steam the nostrils, and adopt such 

 other means as the nature of the case may seem to require. 



Even granting what some contend for ; viz., that an abscess 



occasionally forms in one of the nasal cavities, then it would 



not be proper to bore the horns, for the pus must necessarily 



be enclosed within a sac, which the gimlet may rupture. Then 



23 



