342 CATTLE. 



In some cases the emaciation is frig'utful ; the skin cleaves to the 

 bones, and the animal has become a hving skeleton ; in others there 

 have been swellings about the joints, spreading over the legs gen- 

 erally, occasionally ulcerated ; and in all, the leaden color of the 

 membranes, the rapid ioss of strength, the stench of the excrement, 

 and the unpleasant odor arising from the animal himself, announce 

 the approach of death. 



The appearances after death are extraordinarily uniform, consid- 

 ering of how many diseases this is the accompaniment or the conse- 

 quence, and the length of time that it takes to run its course, and 

 during which so many other organs might have been readily involved. 

 The liver is rarely in any considerable state of disease. The first and 

 second stomachs are seldom much aflfected ; the third stomach pre- 

 sents a variable appearance with regard to the state of the food that 

 it contains, and which is sometimes exceedingly hard, and sometimes 

 almost pultaceous, but there is no inflammation about the stomach 

 itself. The fourth stomach exhibits a peculiar change : there is an 

 infiltration or collection of serous fluid in the cellular substance be- 

 tween the mucous and muscular coat, showing some, but no very 

 acute, degree of inflammation in the submucous tissue. The small 

 intestines are frequently without a single trace of inflammation, but 

 sometimes, however, they are thickened and corrugated, but not in- 

 jected. It is in the caecum, colon, and rectum, that the character 

 of the disease is to be distinctly and satisfactorily traced. 



The account of these post mortem appearances is given at considera- 

 ble lengtli, because they clearly indicate the hitherto unsuspected na- 

 ture of the disease — unsuspected at least among veterinarians ; and 

 they will probably lead to a mode of treatment that promises a 

 little more success than has hitherto attended the efforts of practi- 

 tioners. It is plainly infiammation (at first acute, but gradually 

 assuming a chronic, a more insidious and dangerous form,) of the 

 large intestines, the colon, coecum, and rectum ; it is the dysentery of 

 the human being ; it is that which was once the scourge of the human 

 race, but thousands of whose victims are now rescued from its grasp 

 by the discovery of its real seat and character, and the adoption of 

 those measures which such a disease plainly indicates. 



If this malady be of an inflammatory type, the first, and most ob- 

 vious, and most beneficial measure to be adopted, is bleeding; and 

 this regulated by the age, size, and condition of the beast, the sud- 

 denness and violence of the attack, and the degree of fever. From 

 two to five or six quarts of blood should be abstracted. There must 

 be very great debility — the disease must in a manner have run its 

 course, or the practitioner will be without excuse who, in a case of 

 inflammation of the large intestines, neglects the abstraction of blood. 

 General bleedins^ — bleedinor from the iutrular — will be of service, as 

 lessening the general irritation, and the determination of blood to the 



