POISONS. 311 



early stage of the attack: cessation of rumination; a change in the 

 quality of the milk, which becomes thin and serous, and presently 

 ceases to be secreted ; the refusal of all soHd food, and eagerness 

 after water ; quickening of the pulse, which yet b comes small, and, 

 in some cases, scarcely to be felt ; and the animal frequently grinds 

 the teeth, and paws, and rolls, as if it felt severe colic pains. In a 

 few instances the stupor passes over, an-d a degree of excitement 

 and bhnd fury succeeds, which has been mistaken for madness. 



On examination after death, the greater part of the poison is usu- 

 ally found in the paunch, but, in a few cases, it has been remasti- 

 cated, and conveyed into the fourth stomach and intestines. The 

 sense of taste does not seem to be ver}^ acute in cattle ; it is a sleepy 

 kind of pleasure w^hich they feel in rumination, and the acrid and 

 bitter flavor of many a plant appears to give them little annoyance. 



Inflammation is found in the paunch and second stomach, charac- 

 terized by the ease with which the cuticular coat is separated from 

 that beneath. The manyplus is usually filled with dry and hardened 

 food ; and the fourth stomach and intestines exhibit inflammation 

 and ulceration proportioned to the acrimony of the poison, and the 

 quantity of it which had passed into these viscera. 



Little can be done in the way of medicine when cattle have browsed 

 on these poisonous plants, and the only hope of the practitioner must 

 be founded on the early and persevering use of the stomach-pump 

 Plenty of warm water should be injected and pumped out, and that 

 repeated again and again ; and at length the stomach should be fully 

 distended with water, for the purpose, and in the hope of, producing 

 vomiting. Whether this succeeds or not, a brisk purgative should be 

 next administered, but as cautiously and gently as possible, that it 

 may pass on over the closed floor of the oesophagean canal into the 

 fourth stomach, and not, by the power with which it descends, force 

 open the pillars that compose that floor, and enter the rumen and be 

 lost. Tonics and aromatics will here also follow the evacuation of the 

 stomach, in order to restore its tone. 



While speaking of poisons, it will, perhaps, be proper to mention 

 that cattle are sometimes exposed to extreme danger from the appli- 

 cation of deleterious mineral preparations for the cure of mange and 

 other cutaneous eruptions. 



It is no unusual thing for cattle that have been incautiously dressed 

 with a strong solution of corrosive sublimate, to become seriously ill. 

 They cease to eat and to ruminate ; the saliva drivels from their 

 mouths ; they paw wnth their feet ; look anxiously at their flanks, 

 and are violently purged — blood usually mingling with the f?eces. 



The remedy, if there be time and opportunity to have recourse to 

 it, is the white of several eggs, beaten up with thick gruel, and gently 

 poured down the throat, that it may be more likely to pass on to the 

 fourth stomach ; and this repeated every hour, until the animal if 



