a 



ZONTAGIOUS AND EPIZOOTIC DISEASES. \q 



any from dropping out. Bran or oil meal may be used along 

 with, hot Avater. Steaming may be done by feeding hot bran 

 Clashes from a nose bag hung on the head. When matter 

 points it should be freely evacuated with the lancet, and the 

 poultices continued to complete the softening. If suffocation 

 is. threatened, the windpipe . must be opened in the middle of 

 the neck, and a tube inserted to breathe through. 



Medicine is rarely required. Yet costiveness may be counter- 

 acted by warm water injections, and weakness by stimulants 

 (muriate and carbonate of ammonia) and tonics (gentian, 

 columba, willow-bark). Complications must be treated accord- 

 mg to their nature. 



INFLUENZA. 



A specific epizootic fever of a low type associated with inflam- 

 mation of the respiratory mucous membrane, or less frequently 

 of other organs. It has prevailed at intervals over different 

 parts of the world in man, horses, dogs, and even cats. 

 ^Causes. — Nothing can be definitely stated as to the primary 

 cause of its developmenl, as all peculiar conditions of soil; 

 volcanic action, atmospheric electricity, serial moisture or dry- 

 ness, density or levity, season, temperature, winds, calms, ozone,- 

 and antozone, fail to account for its appearance. The great 

 American epizootic of 1872 was preceded and accompanied in 

 Michigan by an excess of ozone, but the excess did not deter- 

 mine its appearance in other States, which it invaded by a 

 gradual progress Ind with a rapidity proportional to the celerity 

 of communication. 



Symptoms. — The disease comes on suddenly with extreme 

 weakness and stupor. There is often pendent head, half-closed, 

 lustreless eyes, great disinclination to move, with swaying gait,- 

 and cracking joints. Appetite is lost, mouth hot, clammy," 

 bowels costive, urine scanty and high-coloured, pulse accelerated 

 and weak (sometimes hard), a cough, deep, painful, and racking' 



