THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 375 



HAIR BALLS. 



In consequence of the propensity which some animals have 

 of licking their own bodies, or those of their associates, they 

 manage to swallow large quantities of hair, which, being indi- 

 gestible, accumulates in a compartment of the stomach in the 

 form of a dense ball, which is occasionally regurgitated. I 

 know of no remedy calculated to obviate the diflBculty, except 

 those agents which preserve the tone of the stomach, bitters 

 and alkalies ; for the creature which prefers to swallow hair, 

 in preference to the ordinary agents known as food, is evidently 

 the subject of a morbid appetite, and prevention in such cases 

 is the better part of cure. Many valuable animals are lost in 

 consequence of these hair-ball accumulations. 



I am informed that in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, a 

 "singular mortality among the city cows running upon the 

 Common, has prevailed in that city in the early part of this 

 winter, the cause of which has been pretty satisfactorily traced 

 to their eating hair that remained in the grass where the hogs* 

 hair from the slaughter-houses had been spread, to be washed 

 by rains and dried in the sun. The effect upon the earth, after 

 the hair was removed, was to fertilize it, and cause the grass to 

 grow luxuriantly, which attracted cattle ; and, while cropping 

 the grass, they took in considerable quantities of fine hair, the 

 natural tendency of which is to become felted together and 

 massed into one or more hard balls, which were, in the days 

 of New England witchcraft, called " witch balls," and not a few 

 people at this day believe that such is their origin. These 

 balls sometimes accumulate material until they are bigger than 

 ordinary sized goose eggs. It is not surprising that death en- 

 sues from the irritation of such an indigestible mass in the 

 stomach of an ox or cow, and it is also not surprising that 

 many deaths of cattle cannot be accounted for by their owners. 

 But the certainty that such causes do produce death, should 

 act as a caution to cattle owners. Some years ago, the same 

 cause existing at Louisville killed a number of cows at 

 Terre Haute, Indiana, and, upon opening the stomachs, it 



