SWELLING OF THE JOINTS. 428 



extreme cases, the quantity of milk rapidly diminishes, and the cow 

 wastes away, and becomes a mere skeleton. 



Rheumatism in cattle may be palliated, but rarely removed. The 

 treatment of it consists in making the animal comfortable — in shel- 

 tering her from the causes of the complaint — in giving her a warm 

 aperient, which, while it acts upon the bowels, may determine to 

 the skin, as sulphur, with the full quantity of gin/^^er. The prac- 

 titioner will afterwards give that which will yet more determine to 

 the skin, as antimonial powder, combined with an anodyne medicine, 

 almost any preparation of opium ; — and he will h?.ve recourse to an 

 embrocation stimulating to the skin, and thus probably relieving the 

 deeper seated pain, as camphoretted oil, or spirit of turpentine and 

 laudanum. 



Homoeopathic treatment. — ^The most effectual remedy is aconitumy 

 followed by arsenicum. Bryonia is good when the feet are paralyzed. 

 Arseriicum is indicated when tlie animal is observed to walk with the 

 greatest precaution, when he trembles after drinking cold water, 

 and the disease has been brought on by cold drinks, or an excess of 

 food. Rhus toxicodendron should be prescribed when the disease 

 results from too much fatigue. Chamomilla restores the milk secre- 

 tion, after the other ailments have been removed. 



SWELLINGS OF THE JOINTS. 



These are usually the consequence of rheumatism. Small tumors 

 appear in the neighborhood of the joints that were most affected. 

 They seem at first to belong to the muscles ; but they increase : they 

 involve the tendons of the muscles, and then the ligaments of the 

 ioints, and the hning membrane of the joints. When this is the case, 

 other diseases are at hand — inflammation of the lungs or bowels; 

 but, oftenest of all, rheumatism degenerates into palsy. 



The superficial veins in the neighborhood of the joints sometimes 

 become full and large ; they grow decidedly varicose. When the 

 causes of rheumatism are removed, the situation of the animal 

 changed, and the weather has become more congenial, the lameness 

 decreases, the swellings diminish, but the varicose veins remain. 



The enlargements of the joints connected with or the consequences 

 of rheumatism are lemoved — but in the majority of cases only tempo- 

 rarily — by stimulating embrocations, of which spirit of turpentine or 

 the compound one of turpentine, ammonia, camphoretted spirit, and 

 laudanum, is the most effectual. Some, however, will not disappear 

 without the application of the cautery. 



There are other tumors about the joints, and particularly the knees 

 of cattle, which are not necessarily connected with rheumatism, and 

 in many cases quite independent of it, although they are found only 

 in beasts that are out at pasture. i'hey are of two kinds. The first 

 occupies the fore-part of the knee, and generally one knee at a tima 



