HERNIA, OR RUPTURE 361 



bined ; purgative medicine being still occasionally given. Half an 

 ounce of nitre, with a quarter of an ounce each of tartrate of iron, 

 commom liquid turpentine, gentian, and ginger, may be given daily 

 with great advantage. Bran and malt mashes will be useful at first, 

 and when the beast goes again to grass, care should be taken that 

 the pasture is good, but not too luxuriant or rank. In general, some 

 weakness and disinclination to food will remain two or three days 

 after the operation, attended at first by considerable heaving, and 

 apparent distress, for it is a great change from the tumid and over- 

 loaded belly to the perfectly free and natural state of its contents, 

 and which do not at once accommodate themselves to that change. 



The belly so frequently fills again after the lapse of two or three 

 weeks, that it will be prudent to part with a cow that has been drop- 

 sical as soon as she can be got into tolerable condition. The exhibi- 

 tion of diuretic and tonic medicines will, perhaps, stave ojff the return 

 of the disease until this can be accomplished ; but the organs of 

 digestion have been so debilitated, and these exhalent and absorbent 

 vessels have been so habituated to an unnatural action, that a perfect 

 and permanent restoration to health can seldom be expected. A 

 second operation may be attempted if the belly has filled again, but 

 the chances of success are then most materially diminished. 



There is scarcely a book on cattle medicine in which, if this disease 

 be mentioned at all, there is not strict caution that the beast should 

 not have too much water. This is altogether erroneous. The object 

 to be accomplished is to restore the animal as nearly as possible to a 

 state of health ; and this can never be effected by curtailing the 

 proportion of fluid that is necessary for the maceration and digestion 

 of the food, and the supply of all the secretions. A state of unna- 

 tural thirst and fever would, on the contrary, be induced, which 

 would weaken the animal, and dispose it for a recurrence of the 

 disease. 



HomoBopathic treatment. — The remedies employed in this affection, 

 and in the order in which they are here enumerated, are dulcamara, 

 digitalis, hellehorus niger, arsenicum, and china ; to each some days 

 should be allowed, in order to expend their action. It is on the 

 china principally that reliance should be placed. In one case, where 

 all means failed, benefit was derived from lycopodium, whose action 

 may be said to be very powerful in internal dropsies. Ascites 

 comphcated with anasarca has been cured solely by alternate doses 

 of china and arsenicum, a mode of proceeding which experience war- 

 rants recommending. 



HERNIA, OR RUPTURE. 



A portion of the intestine occasionally protrudes through the walls 

 of the abdomen. This may be the consequence of external violence, 

 16 



