240 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



Generally speaking, this disease comes on with dulness, 

 dryness of the muzzle, and protrusion of the tongue ; the 

 pulse is quick and hard ; the membranes of the eyes and nos- 

 trils are bloodshot ; the eyes are starting, the head is ex- 

 tended, the limbs are tottering, and the animal is unwilling 

 to move. The bowels are constipated ; the urine scanty, and 

 either red or dark-coloured. In cows the secretion of milk is 

 either stopped, or the milk is offensive both to taste and 

 smell. As the disease gains ground, the determination of 

 blood to the head becomes more manifest, the animal loses 

 consciousness, the abdomen swells, the frame trembles, the 

 eyes are glairy, the limbs become cold, and the animal sinks 

 torpid. Many or most of these symptoms occur in other 

 inflammatory diseases; consequently the diagnosis is by no 

 means easy, nor are there any which enable the practitioner 

 to say whether the food in the manyplus is divested of its 

 juices, or is in a pultaceous state ; yet these differences must 

 result from separate causes. In the first instance we must 

 suppose a violent contraction of the manyplus from some irri- 

 tation, producing a firm pressure of the comminuted vegetable 

 matter between the leaves of the stomach, which latter, act- 

 ing like a screw-press, forces out the juice and superadded 

 moisture of the mass, converting it into hard, dry, friable 

 layers, which may be crushed to powder. In the second 

 instance the inflammatory action of the stomach must pro- 

 duce a sort of paralysis, or loss of power, so that no action is 

 exerted on the accumulating pultaceous matter, which gradu- 

 ally becomes putrid. But it would appear that in some part 

 of the stomach the leaves may exert pressure, while in another 

 part there is loss of power. 



With respect to the treatment of this disease, when it occurs 

 as a primary affection, much depends on its severity : the ab- 

 straction of blood will relieve the system ; and this must be 

 followed by copious aperient draughts, poured gently down 

 the gullet, or slowly injected by the stomach-pump, the tube 

 of which must be introduced for some distance into the oeso- 

 phagus. The object is to throw the medicine into the many- 

 plus, and thence into the abomasum, without its being forced 

 through the pillars of the oesophagean canal into the paunch. 

 A free operation of the medicine is a favourable symptom. 

 Some writers recommend that a gentle stream of warm water, 

 with a little Epsom salts dissolved in it, be transmitted into 

 the manyplus, through the tube of the stomach-pump, with 



