gZi CATTLE. 



retiring to the fence, either slowly pace along the side of it, or stand 

 hour after hour, listless and half unconscious. Not .nls^ the skin, 

 but the very hair, gradually becomes yellow ; a scaly eruption ap- 

 pears, attended by extreme itching, and sometimes degenerating into 

 the worst species of mange. It is seldom, indeed, that bad mange 

 appears among cattle without being accompanied by a yellow skin ; 

 and the cutaneous eruption was probably caused by the presence 

 and constant excretion of bile irritating the exhalent vessels of the 

 skin. A state of costiveness usually accompanies the yellow skin, at 

 least in the early period of the disease, although diarrhoea, which no 

 astringents will subdue, may afterwards appear, and, in fact, will 

 generally wind up the affair, and carry the patient off. Jaundice 

 cannot long exist without being accompanied by general impairment 

 of health and loss of condition. Cows are particularly subject to it 

 in spring and autumn. The milk soon shares in the yellowness of 

 the other secretions, and occasionally acquires an unpleasant and 

 bitter taste. 



The usual cause of jaundice is obstruction of the passage of the 

 bile from the gall-bladder into the duodenum. This obstruction is 

 effected in various ways ; but most frequently by biliary concretions, 

 calculi, or gall-stones. During the continuance of the bile in the 

 gall-bladder, a certain portion of the water which it contains is re- 

 moved by the process of absorption ; the residue becomes propor- 

 tionably thickened, and the most solid parts are either precipitated, 

 or form themselves into hard masses. Biliary calculi are not unfre- 

 quently found in the gall-bladder of cattle, of varying size, from that 

 of a pin's head to a large walnut. Their form indicates that they 

 were composed by some process of crystallization ; they are round, 

 with concentric circles, or conical, or assuming in a rude way the 

 form of a cube, or a pentagon, or hexagon. There is usually some 

 central portion of harder bile round which the rest is collected. They 

 are of less specific gravity than the bile, and even than water, and 

 are found swimming in the gall-bladder. They are composed of the 

 yellow matter of the bile, with a portion of mucus holding it to- 

 gether. It is insoluble in water and alcohol, but it readily diffuses 

 kself in a solution of potash. 



So far as can be observed, the presence of these calculi in the gall- 

 bladder does not inconvenience the animal, or interfere with healt!i, 

 for thev are found in s^reat numbers of slauQ-htered oxen. At all 

 events, there are no recognized symptoms by which their presence 

 can be detected, or even suspected. In some cases the writer of 

 this work has detected more than a hundred small calculi in the 

 bladder of one ox. 



Sometimes, however, they enter the duct (the cystic) which con- 

 veys the bile to the intestines. They are likely to do this on accounj; 

 of their swimming on the surface of the fluid which the gall-bladde/ 



