Peculiar Diseases, 265 



The richness of the blood and general plethora predispose 

 them to glandular swellings, ulcers, and especially mortifica- 

 tion and gangrene. It is an acknowledged fact that although 

 the flesh of the bullock is one of the most esteemed foods of 

 the human species, there is no animal in which gangrenous 

 ulcers and malignant forms of carbuncular disease are so 

 numerous or so destructively poisonous. 



The gullet of the ox is several times larger than that of the 

 horse; but owing to the greater development of the bones of 

 the nose (the ethmoid and turbinated bones), the pharynx, or 

 upper part of the throat is smaller, and the windpipe is con- 

 siderably less. From these anatomical differences it arises 

 that inflammations of the upper throat are much more liable 

 to produce suffocation than they are in the horse, and de- 

 mand, therefore, early and active attention, or the perform- 

 ance of tracheotomy more promptly. (See page 112.) 



For what reason has not been definitely ascertained, true 

 inflammation of the lungs (pneumonia) is not nearly so fre- 

 quent in cattle as in the horse. What is usually so called in 

 them is an inflammation of the small air tubes of the lung, 

 and is known to medical men as "capillary bronchitis.'' 

 Pleurisy, on the other hand, occurs much oftener than in the 

 horse, and the compound disease called pleuro-pneumonia, 

 where there is along with pleurisy scattered masses of in- 

 flamed tissue in the lung, is at times a malignant epidemic. 



The most terrible of lung diseases in the human race, con- 

 sumption or pulmonary phthisis, is hardly known in horses, 

 but is very common in some breeds of cattle, and in milk 

 cows after neglected colds, pneumonia or pleurisy. It is 

 closely associated with scrofula, which is a hereditary taint 

 of the blood, far more common in the best breeds of cattle 

 than it is in the hog, from which animal the name is derived 

 (Latin, scrofa, a sow). 



