1032 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



6935. The liver of the ox is large, and presents a gall-bladder, which that of the horse does not. This gall 

 bag is furnished by several hepatic ducts leading into the neck of the gall duct. By the existence of a 

 gall bladder the bile is evidently more concentrated ; but it is difficult to understand why this should be 

 necessary to the ruminants and not to the horse. 



6936. The pancreas of the ox is of a lozenge form. The spleen is very large, and is placed on the left side 

 of the paunch. The biliary and pancreatic ducts unite together. The principal fold of the owjcWmtw ir. 

 very large, and incloses the four stomachs, and part of the intestines. The renal capsules are flat and 

 triangular. The kidneys are lobulated. 



6937. The m'gans of generation in the cow differ but little from those of the mare and other Mam- 

 malia. The penis of the bull is more pointed and taper than that of the horse. The vesiculae semin^es 

 are wanting, but have a small ligamentous bridge instead. The prostatse are two. 



SuBSECT. 10. Diseases of Horned Cattle. 



6938. Caltle are subject to some very dangerous diseases ; but as their life is less artificial, and their 

 structure less complex, they are not liable to the variety of ailments which affect the horse. The general 

 pathology of the horse and the ox being little different, the fundamental rules for veterinary practice, 

 and the requisite medicines, when not particularised, will be found in the Veterinary Pharmacopoeia, 

 already given. (6548.) 



6939. Mild fever, pantas or pant^sia. Cattle sometimes appear affected with heat, redness of the 

 nostrils and eyelids ; they refuse food, are dull, evacuate and stale with difficulty ; and the urine is high 

 coloured. These symptoms are often aggravated every other day, giving it the appearance of an inter- 

 mittent affection. The complaint is often brought on by over-driving in very hot weather, occasionally 

 by pushing their fattening process too fast. If there be no appearance of malignancy, and the heaving be 

 considerable, bleed, and give half an ounce of nitre in a drink night and morning; but unless the weather 

 be cold do not house the animal. 



6940. Inflammatory fever is called, among farriers, cow-leeches, and graziers, by the various names of 

 black quarter, joint felon, quarter evil, quarter ill, showing of blood, joint murrain, striking-in of the 

 blood, &c. Various causes may bring this on. It is sometimes epidemic, and at others it seems occasioned 

 by a sudden change from low to very full keep. Over-driving has brought it on. No age is exempt from 

 it, but the young oftener have it than the mature. Its inflammatory stage continues but a few days, and 

 shows itself by a dull and heavy countenance, red eye and eyelids : the nostrils are also red, and a slight 

 mucus flows from them. The pulse is peculiarly quick ; the animal is sometimes stupid, at others watchful, 

 particularly at first ; and in some instances irritable. The appetite is usually entirely lost at the end of 

 the second day, and the dung and urine either stop altogether, or the one is hard, and the other red. 

 About the third day a critical deposit takes place, which terminates the inflammatory action : and it is to 

 the various parts on which this occurs that the disease receives its various names. The deposit is, however, 

 sometimes universal, in the form-of a bloody suffusion throughout the whole skin. In others, swellings 

 form on the joints, or on the back or belly ; and in fact, no part is exempt from their attack. Sometimes 

 the animal swells generally or partially, and the air being suffused under the skin, crackles to the feel. 

 After any of these appearances have come on, the disease assumes a very malignant type, and is highly 

 contagious. 



6941. Treatment of inflammatory fever. Before the critical abscesses form, or at the very outset of the 

 disease, bleed liberally, and purge also : give likewise a fever drink. (6579.) If, however, the disease be 

 not attended to in this early stage, carefully abstain from bleeding, or even purging ; but i nstead, throw 

 up clysters of warm water and salt to empty the bowels, and in other respects treat as detailed under 

 malignant epidemic. (6436.) It may be added, that four drachms of muriatic acid in three pints of oak 

 bark decoction, given twice a day, has proved useful. The swellings themselves may be washed with 

 warm vinegar, both before and after they burst. The cowhouse should be fumigated daily. 



6942. Catarrh or influenxa in cattle, also known by the name oi felon, is only a more mild form of the 

 next disease. Even in this mild form it is sometimes epidemic, or prevalent among numbers ; or 

 endemical by being local. Very stormy wet weather, changing frequently, and greatly also in its tem. 

 perature, are common causes. We have seen it brought on by change of food from good to bad ; and from 

 too close pasturage. It first appears by a defluxion from the nose ; the nostrils and eyelids are red ; the 

 animal heaves, is tucked up in the flanks, and on the third day he loses the cud. There is a distressing 

 and painful cough, and not unfrequently a sore throat also, in which case the beast almost invariably holds 

 down his head. The treatment does not at all differ from that directed under the same disease in 

 horses. (6434.) Bleeding only the first two days, carefully sheltering, but in an open airy place, and 

 littering well up. 



6943. The malignant epidemic influenza is popularly called the murrain or pest ; and has at various times 

 made terrible havoc among cattle. Ancient history affords ample proof of its long existence ; and by the 

 accounts handed down, it does not seem to have varied its types materially. In 1757 it visited Britain, 

 producing extreme fatalitv among our kine. From 1710 to 1714 it continued to rage on the Continent with 

 unabated fury. {Lancisi's' Disputatio Hisiorica de Bovilla Teste.) JJhe years 1730 and 1731, and from 1744 

 to 1746, witnessed its attack, and produced many written descriptions of it, among which stand pre-eminent 

 that of Sauvages, the celebrated professor of medicine at Montpelier. The British visitation of the malady 

 in 1757, elicited an excellent work from the pen of Dr. Layard, a physician of London, which was after- 

 wards translated into several other languages. 



6944. Symptoms of the murrain. Dr. Layard describes it as commencing by a difficulty of swallowing, 

 and itching of the ears, shaking of the head, with excessive weakness and staggering gait, which occa- 

 sioned a continued desire to lie down. A sanious fetid discharge invariably appeared from the nostrils, 

 and eyes also. The cough was frequent and urgent. Fever exacerbating, particularly at night, when it 

 usually produced quickened pulse. There was a constant scouring of green fetid dung after the first two 

 days, which tainted every thing around: even the breath, perspiration, and urine were highly fetid. 

 Little tumours or boils were very commonly felt under the skin, and, if about the seventh or ninth day 

 these eruptions become larger, and boils or buboes appeared with a lessened discharge of feeces, they 

 proved critical, and the animal often recovered; but if, on the contrary, the scouring continued, and the 

 breath became cold, and the mouth dark in colour, he informs us, mortality followed. Sauvages describes 

 the murrain as showing itself by trembling, cold shivers, nose excoriated with an acrid discharge from it ; 

 purging after the first two days, but previous to which there was often costiveness. Great tenderness about 

 the spine and withers was also a characteristic, with emphysema, or a blowing up of the skin by air dis- 

 charged underneath it. 



69+5. Dissections of those that have died of this disease, according to Sauvages, have shown marks of 

 great inflammation, and of a great putrid tendency ; but the solid parts seldom ran into gangrene. The 

 fluid secretions, however, always were sufficiently dissolved and broken down by putridity. The paunch, 

 he says, was usually filled with undigested matter, and the other stomachs highly inflamed ; the gall bladder 

 was also commonly distended, with acrid thick brown bile. Goelich, who likewise dissected these subjects, 

 describes the gall as particularly profuse and intolerably fetid. According to him the whole alimentary 

 canal, from the mouth to the anus, was excoriated ; and Lancisi, contrary to Sauvages, found the vfscera 

 of the chest and belly, in some cases, sphacelated and gangrenous. Gazola describes the murrain as 

 accompanied with pustulous sores ; and so great was the putrid tendency, that even the milk, before it 

 dried up, which it usually did before the fourth day, became fetid. 



