172 , CATTLE. 



BlepdinQT, physic, and short feed will be the treatment ; and the 

 last the most impoi'tant. If the beast were designed for market, it 

 will be prudent to hasten that time. 



Homoeopalhic treatment. — Some doses of oconitum are the first 

 means to be employed ; after which we should administer stramo- 

 nium, and, if the fit return, belladonna. We may also have recourse 

 to hyoscyamus, (especially if the fits are accompanied with violent 

 movements of the thighs,) also to cocculus and calcarea carbonica. It 

 will be useful to try some doses of camphor every week, to prevent 

 the return of the fits. ]f the disease depend on worms, as has been 

 sometimes found, china is one of the most useful remedies for it. 



PALSY. 



There are many low, woody, marshy situations, in which cattle 

 are subject to palsy. It is frequent during a cold, ungenial spring ; 

 and sometimes it assumes the character of an epizootic. Old beasts, 

 and those that have been worked, are particularly subject to i^ ; and 

 especially when they are turned out during a cold night, after a hard 

 day's work. A damp and unwholesome cowhouse, from which the 

 litter is rarely removed, but putrid effluvia mingle with the vapor 

 that is continually rising, is a fruitful source of palsy, and especially 

 if to this be added the influence of scanty and bad food and stagnant 

 water. Old cows, whose milk has been dried and who cannot be 

 made to carry much flesh, are very subject to this complaint. 



Palsy is usually slow in its progress. There appears to be general 

 debility ; perhaps referable to the part about to be attacked more 

 than to any other ; and a giving way, or trembling of that part, and 

 sometimes, but not always, a coldness of it. The hind limbs are 

 most fi-equently attacked. It is at first feebleness, which increases to 

 stiffness, to awkwaidness of motion, and at length to total loss of it. 

 The fore limbs are sometimes the principal seat of the disease, but 

 then the hind limbs always participate in the affection. In no case 

 is there any aff"ection of one side and not of the other ; this is a dif- 

 ference in palsy in the human being and the brute, for which we can- 

 not account. 



Sometimes this complaint is traced to a ridiculous cause. The 

 original evil is said to be in the tail ; and it is thought that the mis- 

 chief passes along the cow's tail to the back, and that it is on account 

 of something wrong in the tail that she loses the use of her legs : 

 some cut the cow's tail off"; others, less cruel, make an incision into 

 the under surface, and allow the wound to bleed freely, and then 

 fill it up with a mixture of tar and salt. Is not relief sometimes 

 given by these operations on the tail ? — probably. What would 

 make a cow get up and use her limbs if the knife, and the rubbing-in 

 of tar and salt failed ; the loss of blood would often be beneficial, 

 but not more from the tail than from any other part. 



