AFRICAN GRAY PARROT AND OTHER PARROTS. 105 



feter, coughing, discharge of yellow phlegm, sometimes streaked with Wood ; a 

 gasping sound, particularly at night. Treatment : Warm air, but moistened by water 

 sprinkled about cage. Make pills of from two to five grains of carbonate of am- 

 monia with bread, and give one every three hours ; or, instead of the pills, one to 

 two grains of nitre, for a dose, dissolved in water. 



Indigestion. Symptoms: Want of appetite ; hard brown excrement, in small 

 quantities ; apathy. Causes: Unsuitable or bad food, and consequent disturbed con- 

 dition of the digestive fluids. Treatment: Light food, a plain diet of unhulled rice 

 and a few sunflower seeds, but little green food, some salt, and tepid drinking water ; 

 a teaspoonful of lukewarm Bordeaux wine, with a small piece of sweet almond or 

 walnut, is good. Put into the cup of drinking water a teaspoonful of lime-water. 

 Do not feed dainties from the table. 



Inflammation Of the Stomach. Cause : Stale or otherwise bad food ; 

 icy-cold drinking water; cold la the stomach; eating poisonous substances, or wet 

 green herbs, or swallowing bone, little stones, etc. Symptoms: Want of appetite, 

 thirst, choking, and vomiting, slimy, and even bloody, excretion, shivering and weak- 

 ness ; often the belly appears swollen and red. Treatment varies according to the 

 cause. Quiet; warm poultices held against the belly; also sand, as warm as is 

 pleasant to the hand, which must be kept at the same temperature ; give a solution 

 of tannin, two parts to one hundred parts of warm water, two or three times daily, 

 and of Glauber's salt one half grain for a dose, in water, for a purge, two or three 

 times daily. Second remedy : A teaspoonful of pure glycerine daily, using also the 

 solution of salicylic acid one part to three hundred parts water, giving ten drops 

 three times a day. 



Diarrhoea arises from various causes, and appears as a symptom in different 

 diseases. Read the article above under " Diseases," and see how the excrement 

 varies from the description there given ; if it becomes whiter, yellower, or more 

 slimy, if the feathers "under the tail stick together, and if the vent looks swollen 

 or inflamed, then there is a cold in the intestines, and the remedies given under 

 " Inflammation of the Stomach" should be used. If the excretion is whitish green 

 or chocolate colored, and of a sour, bad odor, with loss of appetite, while the crop 

 is full, and there is great thirst, then there is severe inflammation of the stomach. 

 Treatment : Do not check the purging ; keep warm ; give rice water and calcined 

 magnesia with water ; feed only plain unhulled rice. Second remedy : Feed the 

 unhulled rice, giving at the same time a half cracker soaked in brandy, on which 

 sprinkle a little red pepper. In severe cases pour down the bird's throat a teaspoon- 

 ful of boiled milk with five drops of paregoric every three hours. 



Bloody Discharges. Give a teaspoonful of boiled milk with four drops 

 of laudanum in it every three hours. Feed no fruit or green stuff, and do not allow 

 the bird to drink water unless it is impregnated with iron. 



Dysentery. Treat as for diarrhoea, and give also from half to one teaspoon- 

 ful of castor-oil, with ten drops of honey ; if the excretions be blackish, give, in 

 addition, half to one teaspoonful of port wine one, two, or three times a day. The 

 sticky feathers under the tail should be bathed and washed with warm water. 



CostiveneSS, Constipation, arises from a disturbance of the digestion. 

 Symptoms : Continued effort to void excrement ; tilting the hinder part of the body ; 



