328 CATTLE. 



affections of the liver, but one of the most untractable and fatal ; and 

 this from the insidious manner in which it proceeds until it lias fixed 

 itself on the constitution beyond the power of medicine to remove it. 

 The following short directions comprise all that can be done : — sub- 

 due the inflammation or fever by bleeding and physic ; — keep the 

 bowels afterwards under the mild but evident influence of purgative 

 medicine ; — add aromatics and stomachics to tiie medicine almost 

 from the beginning ; to these, if the strength and condition of the 

 animal should appear to be wasting, add tonics — the gentian root 

 will stand at the head of them ; — and lastly, when the disease has 

 been apparently subdued, a few tonic drinks will restore the appe- 

 tite, prepare for the regaining of condition, and re-establish the secre- 

 tion of milk. 



Homoeopathic treatment. — The chief remedies to be employed are : 

 mercurius viviis, nux vomica, and chamomilla. Arsenicum is employ- 

 ed, if rumination be suppressed ; and lycopodium, if there be cough. 

 Mercurius soluhilis is, i1 is said, specific when the stools are whitish, 

 as sometimes happens in acute jaundice. Sulphur has more than 

 once sufficed to remove the disease. 



THE PANCREAS. 



This is a long, irregularly formed, flattened gland, confined to the 

 left side of the abdomen, in the neighborhood of, but not adhering 

 to, the fourth stomach, and mostly connected with the duodenum 

 and colon, by mesenteric attachments. It is of a pale red color, and 

 evidentlv composed of an accumulation of small glands, resembling 

 salivary ones : each of them is a secreting gland, and a duct proceeds 

 from each ; — these unite and form one common canal, which takes its 

 course towards the duodenum, unites itself with the biliary duct, 

 already described, and enters with it into the duodenum, as repre- 

 sented at h, in the cut in p. 291. 



This gland appears to be subject to very few diseases, and the 

 symptoms of these diseases are, in the present state of knowledge of 

 the pathology of cattle, very imperfectly known. In a few instances, 

 enlargement of the pancreas has been found after death ; at other 

 times, there have been inflammation, tubercles, a schirrous induration, 

 and considerable abscess ; but there were no previous symptoms to 

 lead to the suspicion that this gland was the principal seat of disease, 

 and there were other morbid appearances in the stomachs or intes- 

 tines, to indicate sufficient cause of death without reference to the 

 state of the pancreas. This is a subject which deserves the attention 

 of the veterinary surgeon, and on which no one has yet ventured to 

 write. 



We are now prepared to follow the passage of the food from the 

 fourth stomach into the intestinal canaL 



