DISEASES OF THE MANYPLUS, OR MANIFOLDS. 315 



of a narcotic nature. A sudden change from green and succulent 

 food to that which is hard and fibrous may also readily be supposed 

 to be a very likely cause of it. The strange fancy that induces many 

 cows, and especially those in calf, to refuse the soft and nutritious 

 food of the pasture and browse on the coarse grass and weeds which 

 the hedges produce, will necessarily overload the raanyplus with hard 

 and fibrous substances.; and many a beast has suffered in this way 

 from being too rapidly and exclusively put on chaff of various kinds. 



The symptoms vary in different animals, but the following is an 

 outline of them : the animal is evidently oppressed ; the pulse is 

 somewhat accelerated and hard ; the respiration not much quickened ; 

 the muzze dry ; the mouth hot ; tho tongue protruded, and seemingly 

 enlarged ; the membrane both of the eyes and nose injected ; the eye 

 protruded or weeping ; the head extended ; the animal unwillino- to 

 move ; the gait uncertain and staggering ; the urine generally voided 

 with difficulty, and sometimes red and even black. There is apparent 

 and obstinate costiveness, yet small quantities of liquid feeces are 

 discharged. As the disease proceeds, and often at an early period, 

 there is evident determination of blood to the head, evinced not only 

 by this staggering gait, but by a degree of unconsciousness ; the eyes 

 weep more ; the lids are swollen ; the costiveness continues or some 

 hardened excrement is voided, but fetid and mixed with blood ; 

 rumination ceases ; the secretion of milk is usually suspended, or the 

 milk becomes offensive both in taste and smell ; the urine flows more 

 abundantly, but that too continues of a dark color. 



Many of these symptoms distinguish this complaint from dis- 

 tension of the rumen ; there is not the hardness at the flanks, 

 and the general swelling of the belly, which is observed in disten- 

 sion by food ; nor the greater distension and threatened suffocation 

 which accompany hoove. In bad* cases, and when the symptoms 

 take on much of the character of that andescribed and unintelli- 

 gible disease, wood-evil — trembling of tht frame generally, a deo-ree 

 of palsy, coldness of the extremities, actual swelling of the tongue, 

 the eyes glaring, and the ears and the tail being in frequent and 

 convulsive motion — these are the precursors of death. 



The period of the termination of the disease is uncertain ; it 

 extends ^rom three or four days to more than as many weeks. 

 Many of these symptoms so often accompany other diseases, that 

 they are utterly insufficient always or generally to lead to a right 

 conclusion as to the nature of the complaint, and careful inquiry 

 must be made into the history of the case. 



The treatment is as unsatisfactory as the history of the symptoms. 

 It will always be proper to bleed, in order to diminish any existing 

 fever, or to prevent the occurrence of that which continued disease 

 of this important stomach would be likely to produce. To this 

 should follow a dose of physic, in order to evacuate the intestines 



