254 HORSE AND CATTLE MEDICINES. 



Fixed Oils. — Castor, olive, linseed, croton and neats'- 

 foot oil. The uses of these oils will be found treated 

 of under their respective heads. 



Opium. — Papaver Somniferum. — The dried juice of 

 the white poppy, and is one of the most remarkable sub- 

 stances in nature. There are several varieties of opium : 

 Turkey, Egyptian, East Indian, Persian, and European 

 opium. The medical preparations of opium are several: 



Morphia, or morpliine, is the most important prepara- 

 tion of opium, and sold in the drug stores in the form of 

 white crystals, and in the form of a liquid; — liquor mor- 

 phia acetas, and liquor and liquor morphia sulphas. 

 Either of these prepara'tions of opium are much better 

 medicines than the crude opium itself. Each fluid ounce 

 contains one grain of the morphine, or the true principle 

 of the opium, and one grain of morphine is equal to 

 three grains of opium, or to forty-five drops of the tinc- 

 ture of opium, commonly called laudanum. 



Uses. — Opium is a narcotic, or reliever of pain, and is 

 especially recommended in milk fever in cows. 



Dose. — The dose of the acetate, sulphate, or muriate in 

 crystals, will be for the horse from twenty to forty 

 grains. For the cow with milk fever, the dose will be 

 from forty to eighty grains. To a medical man, such 

 large doses may seem to him enormous, for in man the 

 dose is from half to one grain. 



Horses will scarcely show the least effects from the ad- 

 ministration of from two to four drachms of the powdered 

 opium. On cattle, opium has even much less power than 

 it has on horses. Cows can take one ounce, and -sheep 

 half a drachm of powdered opium, without suffering. 

 The doses of crude, or powdered opium for horses, will be 

 from one to two drachms, and for cattle, two to four 



