214 DISEASES OF ANIMALS. 



BLOODY MURRAIN. 



Cause. A disordered state of the digestive organs 

 brought on by an unwholesome state of the atmosphere, 

 or by feeding on unhealthy pastures of low, damp, cold 

 meadows, infested by aquatic plants, which, taken 

 into the stomach, become indigestible and putrid, and 

 thus engender disease ; »for cattle are affected on various 

 low land pastures, while they have escaped in interme 

 diate pastures of high lands. Bad water promotes it. 

 Some attribute this disease to the overflowing of the 

 gall, (which is only a secondary cause,) affecting the 

 liver, and causing leeches therein, and a flow of blood 

 outward or inward. In this country it is most common 

 in new sections, in the western region, where cattle run 

 in the woods. One writer thinks that a sudden change 

 of food, from green to dry, and the reverse, or other 

 changes of food, will cause this complaint 5 hence its 

 common occurrence in spring and fall. 



Symptoms. Decrease of appetite, stretching of the 

 neck, shaking of the head, drooping of the ears, dulness 

 of the eyes, and deafness. These signs increase for 

 several days ; then ensue stupidity, unwillingness to 

 move, great debility, total loss of appetite, running at 

 the nose and eyes, a husky cough, shivering, sometimes 

 sickness and throwing up of bile, pulse quick, contracted 

 and uneven, a constant diarrhoea of green excrements, 

 and frequently bloody matter in the excrements and 

 urine, a stinking breath, a nauseous steam from the 

 skin that infects the air, tumors or boils under the fleshy 

 membrane of the skin, and eruptions appear all along 

 the skin. These. symptoms generally increase for about 

 a week, when the crisis takes place for the better or 

 worse. In the last stages, bloody matter is often dis- 

 charged from the mouth and nostrils. Sometimes the 

 attack comes on very suddenly, and the animal seldom 

 lives more than twelve to thirty-six hours after the 

 bloody discharges commence, and these may be the 

 firnt symptoms noticed. 



Preventives. Air-slaked lime, or wood ashes. These 



