344 THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OF 



housing. For animals in a perfectly healthy state are certain 

 to enjoy immunity from this and other diseases. 



I have lately noticed several articles in agricultural papers 

 on the prevention of black leg, which in the name of comtnon 

 humanity I am compelled to notice. The one I have thought 

 proper to select reads as follows : — 



" Preventive. — Take spring calves in the month of October ; 

 cut a small incision in the hollow above the foot. On the top 

 of the flesh a small blue vein appears ; take a crooked instru- 

 ment, in the shape of an awl, and" put the point under the vein, 

 raise It up so that it can be cut, and take about an eighth of 

 an inch out of the vein. Don't sew up the incision. It must 

 be done on all the four feet. 



" I have cut many hundreds, and have known of thousands 

 being cut, and never knew of one dying with the above disease 

 after being cut." 



Now I am not disposed to scold, or find fault, nor question 

 the intentions of men who recommend or practice such out- 

 rageous barbarities under the guise of doctoring sick animals, 

 but I wish to remind the intelligent reader that cattle have 

 nei-ves to feel and are as keenly sensible to pain as we are, 

 therefore, all unnecessary operations, even should they have 

 received the seal of antiquity, ought to be avoided. This is 

 the age of progression. The lamp of veterinary science is 

 illuminating the mystified halo which has hitherto surrounded 

 our barn -yard practice ; and before the barbarities of by-gone 

 (lays are practised on our domestic animals, let us be satisfied 

 that we are using rational means for the recovery of the sick, 

 such as scit3nce and common sense confirms. Just as rational 

 would it be, if it were at all rational, to take an infant and 

 divide one of the posterior veins of both feet, in view of 

 preventing disease common to adult life, which, after all, 

 might never occur, the little creature not being predisposed 

 thereto. 



Let any one just study the anatomical structure of the foot 

 of an ox, and he will iearn that the vein which we are recom- 

 mended to sever and amputate from, is called the coronary, and 



