r3*S THE FARM DOCTOR. 



which are naturally stimulating to the digestive organs and livtf. 

 Turnips and other saccharine roots, though perfectly safe from 

 ordinary soils, are dangerous from these, and in the natural 

 meadows and woods the young shoots of resinous trees (coniferse) 

 and the acrid plants of the ranunculus, colchicum, and asclepias 

 families, etc., are held to produce it. Its prevalence in woods 

 and uncultivated meadows has procured for it in almost all 

 European countries some name equivalent to wood disease. An 

 important element in the causation is the existence of soil rich 

 in organic matter and soured by the stagnation of water, owing 

 to a clay or otherwise impervious subsoil. Cows are very 

 susceptible just after calving and often perish. 



Symptoms. — Dulness, languor, weakness, especially of the 

 hind limbs, trembling, surface coldness, staring coat, dry 

 muzzle, hot mouth and horns, and diminution of the milk, which 

 is white and frothy and may throw down a reddish sediment. 

 Appetite is lost, thirst ardent, pul«e small and weak, beats of 

 the heart tumultuous, amounting to palpitation in the parturient 

 cases, bowels at first relaxed, afterward costive, abdomen tender, 

 urine passed frequently in small quantity and often with suffering. 

 Colicky pains are often a marked symptom when the irritation 

 of the bowels is extreme. Delirium even will set in in bad cases, 

 and death usually supervenes on a state of extreme prostration. 



Prevention may be sought in thorough drainage ; in restricting 

 the allowance of objectionable food and supplementing it with 

 sound dry grain and fodder ; in the avoidance of damp, woody, 

 and natural meadows in spring until there is a good growth of 

 grass, and in the rejection of hay from faulty pastures contain- 

 ing an excess of acrid plants. 



Treatment. — At the onset of the disease notliing succeeds 

 better than a free evacuation of the bowels and depletion of the 

 portal vein and liver by an active purgative. When there is no 

 abdominal pain or other sign of inflammation of the bowels, 

 salts or 3ny other active purgati'-e will suffice, but with colic 



