76 General Principles of Veterinary Medicine, 



obstinately maintaining one position, shows that any other is 

 painful. Horses stand as long as they possibly can, as they 

 breathe much easier in the upright position, and if they once 

 lie down, they soon despair and die. Hence the rule is with 

 a horse to sling him up, in almost all ailments. With 

 cattle it is diiferent, and it is much less important to keep 

 them erect. When animals cannot rise, it may be from weak- 

 ness, or from palsied limbs, or from severe injuries or sprains. 



INDICATIONS OF PAIN. 



The feeling of pain in animals is indicated by their flinch- 

 ing when the painful part is touched; by the care which 

 they take in lying down, walking or standing to " favor'' the 

 part, and by the appearance of the eye. Distress and suffer- 

 ing are generally plainly apparent in the faces of sick horses 

 and cattle. 



SPECIAL SIGNS IN CATTLE. 



In cattle the horn at its root yields by the sensation it im- 

 parts to the hand a rough idea of the temperature of the 

 blood, and the cowleech generally feels it as ihQ doctor does 

 the pulse, as a part of the indispensable programme of a pro- 

 fessional visit. If the temperature is natural, he concludes 

 there is no fever ; if cold, and the tips of the ears also cold, 

 it is a sign of some serious internal congestion, the blood no 

 longer circulating in natural force through the extremities. 



The muzzle is another part he takes note of. In health 

 this is moist, covered with ^' dew," as the saying is ; but in 

 disease, especially fever, it is dry, hotter or colder than nat- 

 ural, and sometimes changed in color, paler or injected with 

 blood. By looking at the flanks, the regularity of the res- 

 piration is noted, rapid and irregular heaving there betraying 

 the disturbance of the important function of breathing. In 



