MURRAIN, OR PESTILENTIAL FEVER. 87 



Dody, not indeed too numerous, and their breaking' and discharo-ino- a 

 considerable quantity of purulent matter. If from exposure to cold, 

 or other improper treatment, the boils were repelled, or if they gra- 

 dually lessened and disappeared, death was an almost inevitable 

 consequence. If the dung became more consistent, and the urine not 

 so higlily coloured, and the mouth cooler, and the beast began to 

 brighten up, and look a little cheerfully around him, there was hope ; 

 but if the boils receded, and the scouring became constant, and the 

 breath was hot, and the horns were cold, and the difficulty of breathing 

 increased, and the anirnal groaned at every motion; if the eye sunk, 

 and the pulse intermitted, and the beast was almost unconscious, 

 and a cadaverous smell proceeded from him, it was seldom that he 

 escaped. 



On examination after death, the whole of the cellular texture under 

 the skin was found to be distended either by air or a sanious fluid, 

 and in most cases partly by both. The air rushed out when the skin 

 was punctured, and stunk most abominably; and the cellular texture 

 and the muscles were rendered livid and black by the dark fluid which 

 they contained. The brain and its membranes were inflamed, and 

 the ventricles filled and distended. The mouth and nose, and fauces 

 and throat, and the frontal sinuses to the very tip of the horn, were 

 filled with ulcerations and with pus. The lungs were inflamed in 

 patches, and filled with tubercles. The liver was large, and so rotten 

 that it was torn by the slightest touch. All the vessels of the liver 

 and the gall-bladder were gorged with greenish fetid bile. The 

 paunch was distended with wind, and undigested and, generally, 

 hardened food. The third stomach contained between its leaves a 

 quantity of dry and hardened food, so hard and brittle that it might 

 be almost powdered; and the fourth stomach, or rennet bag, was 

 empty, but highly inflamed and gangrened in various places. The 

 intestines were also beset with livid and black spots. The uterus 

 of those that were in calf was gangrened, and the smell from the fluid 

 which it contained was almost insufferable. 



It seemed to be a high degree of fever, which had speedily run on 

 to a typhoid and malignant form, and by which every part of the 

 frame was poisoned. 



We have not for a long while been visited to any great extent by 

 this malady, and should it again occur, the veterinary art is far more 

 advanced than it was many years ago, and there is reason to hope 

 that it would not be so destructive as in times past. 



The treatment would be, first, and the most important thing of all, 

 to separate the diseased from the sound : to remove every animal that 

 seemed to be in the slightest degree affected to some isolated portion 

 of the farm where contact with others would be impossible. It would 

 be imprudent to remove those that appeared to be unaffected, because 

 it would be impossible to know that the virus did not lurk in their 

 veins, and thus the poison might be conveyed to other parts of the 



