204 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



some practitioners speak very highly. Mr. Youatt says, that 

 though he will not affirm that he has discovered a specific for 

 consumption in cattle, yet he has saved some that would 

 otherwise have perished. He would urge on practitioners 

 the study of the symptoms of phthisis, and attention to the 

 inward, feeble, painful, hoarse, gurgling cough, of consump- 

 tion ; and as soon as they are assured that this termination of 

 catarrh, or pneumonia, or pleurisy, begins that tubercles 

 have formed, and have, perhaps, begun to suppurate let 

 them have recourse to the iodine in the form of the iodide of 

 potass, given in a small mash in doses of three grains, morn- 

 ing and evening, at the commencement of the disorder, and 

 gradually increased to six or eight grains. To this should be 

 added proper attention to comfort, yet not too much nursing, 

 and free access to succulent, not stimulating food. The 

 medicine should be continued not only until the general 

 condition of the beast begins to improve, but until the cha- 

 racter of the cough has been essentially changed. 



INFLAMMATION OF THE HEART AND PERICARDIUM. 



In the horse, an animal called to violent and continued 

 muscular exertion, to the toils of the chase and the course, 

 inflammation of the heart is by no means of uncommon 

 occurence ; but in the ox it rarely occurs as a disease per se. 

 The symptoms cannot be mistaken : the pulse is full and very 

 strong, and the heart may be seen and felt violently pulsating 

 against the left side of the chest ; and each stroke may be 

 heard, even at a distance. 



Copious bleeding through a large orifice, even to fainting, 

 and repeated if the symptoms are not decidedly suppressed, 

 with smart aperients, are the only means on which any 

 dependence is to be placed. 



Inflammation of the pericardium, or sac enveloping the 

 heart, occurs occasionally from extraneous causes. Cattle 

 have sometimes a strange propensity to swallow sharp-pointed 

 substances, as pieces of wire, large needles, nails, &c. ; and 

 these articles, which, when accidentally taken into the sto- 

 mach of other animals, work their way out externally, gene- 

 rally without much injury, take in cattle a more dangerous 

 course. 



In cattle such substances often, perhaps mostly, work their 

 way into the pericardium, producing inflammation, and other 

 extensive ulceration or dropsy of the chest. Several cases of 



