64 DYSENTERY, &C. 



commenced twenty-four hours after the purgative has been adminis- 

 tered . 



If the disease does not speedily yield to this treatment, it will not 

 be prudent to continue the use of such large quantities of astringent 

 medicines for any considerable time. The following drink may then 

 be given, and continued morning and night for five or six days :^ 



RECIPE (No. 18). 



Astringent Drink with Mutton Suet. — Take mutton suet, one pound; new milk, two 

 quarts; boil them together until the suet is dissolved; then add opium, powdered, 

 half a drachm; ginger, one drachm, having previously well mixed them with a 

 spoonful or two of fluid. 



When the dysentery is stopped, the beast should very slowly and 

 cautiously be permitted to return to his former green food. Either 

 during the night or the day, according to the season of the year, he 

 should be confined in the cow-house, and turned out twelve hours 

 only out of the twenty-four. Water should be placed within reach 

 of the animal, in the cow-house, and, if possible, in the held ; for 

 there are few things more likely to bring on this disease, or more 

 certain to aggravate it, than the drinking of an inordinate quantity of 

 water after long-continued thirst. 



These precautionary measures should be continued for a considera- 

 ble time ; for there is something very treacherous in this malady, and 

 it will often suddenly return several weeks after it has been appa- 

 rently subdued. 



In those cases, and they are much too numerous, which totally 



resist the influence of the medicines already recommended, other 



means should be tried. The alum whey has sometimes succeeded, 



and is thus prepared : — 



RECIPE (No. 10). 



Alum 7F/iC7/.— Take alum, half an ounce; milk, two quarts. Boil them together 

 for ten minutes, and strain. 



This may be administered twice every day. 



The disease may not yield even to this. It will then be evident 

 that it is the consequence of some other disease, and, probably, of iho 

 liver, the vitiated bile secreted by which is keeping up the purgino-. 

 It is almost a forlorn hope to attack such a case; but the beast may 

 be valuable, and, at all events, we cannot be worse off. The only 

 medicine that can have power here is mercury, for it seems to exert 

 its chief influence on the liver and the discharge of bile. The mildest, 

 and at the same time the most effectual, form in which it can be ad- 

 ministered, is that of the blue pill, half a scruple of which may be 

 given morning and night, rubbiMl down with a little thick gruel. 

 There is very little danger of salivation : yet it may be prudent to 

 give half a pound of Epsom salts every fifth or sixth day ; and most 

 certainly to give them every second day, and discontinue the blue 

 pill, if the mouth should become sore, or the breath slinking, or there 

 should be a more than usual discharge of saliva from the mouth. 



In many cases there is found a schirrous state of the third and fourth 

 Stomachs in cattle that have died of, or been destroyed for, this disease. 



