No. 4.] DAIRYING. 77 



tiou or at any other time, — it is hot water. I would rather 

 have a teaciipful of hot water than the contents of all the drug 

 stores. I am against all kinds of patent medicines; if you 

 want to take them, it is all right, you will soon pass on ; but I 

 beg of yon, do not feed those things to your cows. You 

 wouldn't try to clean a clogged sewer with quinine and 

 whiskey ; and the inside of a man's body, or a cow's, as I see 

 it, is a sewer. Elush it out with hot water ; give the cow all 

 the hot water she wants, and she will drink it, and wash the 

 poisons out of her body. 



Also, have a clinical thermometer, and anticipate trouble by 

 determining her temperature. If it goes up to 102° or 103° 

 in the morning, look out, for there is something the matter. 

 Use hot water and blankets. We blanket our horse when 

 there is anything the matter with him, and turn our cow out 

 of doors. The temperature may be as high as that in the 

 afternoon, of course, and not be serious. A woolen blanket 

 and a teakettleful of hot water, repeated if she will take it, 

 constitute all the medicine, outside of being well cared for, 

 that a well-organized dairy institution needs. If the cow is 

 normal — and I am speaking of the period at parturition — 

 she has acquired a thirst, and she will drink the hot water; 

 she would rather have it than four quarts of oats, to start the 

 afterbirth. There is only one animal that can stand really 

 cold water, and that is a man with a strong heart action. He 

 can drink ice water, and seems to live and thrive. With any 

 other animal it reduces the temperature and stops secretion. 

 Any secretion organ is in danger when cold water or cold 

 applications are applied. For a severe case of stoppage, if 

 you have a veterinarian at hand, or the individual skill, I 

 would not stop with the hot water; but with this method of 

 feeding and treatment that danger is reduced to such a small 

 factor that it is not worth reckoning. It is part of our law of 

 breeding to get into trouble, and then find something to get us 

 out quickly. We might well study the Japanese, — they hire 

 doctors to keep them well. A strong, muscular, vigorous cow 

 may be able, just as soon as she is normal, to take cold water, 

 say about 40° or 45° ; it ought not to go below that. If a cow 

 of a different make takes it, it might bring on trouble the 

 very first thing. We have not sufficiently studied the indi- 



