DISEASES OE THE OUGANS OF GENERA TION. 



235 



Prevention. — Spare diet (starvation in the plethoric) for a 

 week before and after calving, an active purgative (Epsom salts) 

 to act as soon after calving as possible, plenty of fresh, cool air, 

 milking, if necessary, before calving and thrice daily after. In 

 the full flush of grass it is needful to keep plethoric parturient 

 subjects indoors, upon dry hay with plenty of salt and water, 

 or on a very bare pasture. Even if attacked a week after 

 calving they usually recover. 



Treatment. — If the animal is seen before it goes down, bleed 

 four or six quarts from the jugular, but never after the pulse 

 has lost its fulness and hardness ; apply ice-cold water, bags of 

 ice, or a solution of an ounce each of nitre and sal-ammoniac 

 in a quart of water to the head round the base of the horns, 

 give a powerful purgative (2 lbs. Epsom salts, |^ oz. carbonate 

 of ammonia, h dr. nux vomica), apply friction to the limbs, 

 draw the milk off at frequent intervals and repeat the ammonia 

 and nux vomica every four hours. The nux vomica may be 

 replaced by strychnia, i grain with 2 or 3 drops of vinegar in a 

 teaspoonful of water and injected under the skin twice with 

 four hours interval, or ergot of rye may be used instead. The 

 fever may often be materially reduced by enveloping the whole 

 body in a sheet wrung out of cold water, and covering up with 

 one or several dry ones according to the season. 



In the second or torpid form of the disorder there is often 

 no call for cold applications to the head, while purgatives and 

 nux vomica are specially demanded. 



