RURAL VETERINARY SECRETS 83 



THE AIR TREATMENT— HOW IT AVAS 

 DISCOVERED 



MILK FEVER (Parturient Paresis) 



Until 1897 over 50 per cent of milk fever cases proved to be 

 fatal. In 1897 Dr. Schmidt Kolding of Denmark recommended the 

 injection of a solution of Potassium Iodide, 2^2 drams of the drug' 

 being dissolved in a quart of warm water and injected equally into 

 the four teats. This produced a wonderful improvement in the 

 mortality of the victims, Schmidt claiming to save 90 per cent. 



The writer followed the advise of Dr. Schmidt from 1898 to 

 1903 with good success and from time to time had noticed that those 

 patients into whose teats he permitted a liberal amount of air to 

 enter while injecting the solution made much quicker and more 

 satisfactory recoveries. He, therefore, continued to be liberal with 

 air in his treatment of these cases, and in one year, viz., from Janu- 

 ary 1, 1903, to January 1, 1904, treated 167 cases, admitting more 

 and more air, out of which 161 recovered, only six being lost. On 

 the night of July 21, 1903, he was called to the farm of August 

 Gnewuck in the town of Lebanon, Dodge County, Wisconsin, to 

 treat a cow with milk fever. While getting his apparatus sterilized 

 (the drug' having been measured out and the water ready for mak- 

 ing the solution) Mr. Gnewuck told several funny stories which 

 very much amused the writer. In the meantime the udder was in- 

 jected, the cow comforted and placed on her sternum and the owner 

 given his instructions and requested to phone about the condition 

 of the patient after six or eight hours. After the writer had de- 

 parted and had passed the six mile post on his homeward trip, he 

 discovered that he had forgotten to add the Potassium Iodide and 

 had really injected nothing but warm water and a liberal amount of 

 air. Fearing that his client would report before morning that the 

 patient's condition was much worse on account of this mistake, he 

 could not sleep but waited patiently for the ring of the telephone. 

 When after the fifth hour the owner telephoned that the patient 

 had gone to her stall and was up and eating, the writer was indeed 

 surprised. But it at once became apparent to him that the Potas- 

 sium lodid was not the curative agent in this treatment and from 

 past experience he concluded that the oxygen in the air was most 

 likely entitled to the credit. 



Experiments were then undertaken with two succeeding pa- 

 tients, there being injected a liberal amount of air and only enough 



