1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



471 



are being made, and it is the part of wisdom 

 to avail ourselves of all the real improve- 

 ments. 



If a man in Orange County, New York, or 

 in Penobscot County, Maine, has demonstrated 

 by actual and continued sales at a material ad- 

 vance upon the prices commonly received, 

 that he has hit upon a plan of gratifying the 

 tastes of the consumers of his products, there- 

 by loosening their grasp on their pu-rse strings, 

 it is well for others in the same branch of busi- 

 ness to investigate the merits of his system at 

 whatever cost, and to adopt so much of it as is 

 adapted to their circumstances. The dairy- 

 men of this country have put millions of dol- 

 lars into their pockets as the result of just such 

 investigations during the last ten years alone, 

 and the end is not yet. 



There are associations of one or another 

 kind, in most of the dairy States for this pur- 

 pose, but their efforts have been mainly con- 

 fined to the cheese department. The Ameri- 

 can Dairymen's Association, however, at its 

 last meeting recognizing its increasing impor- 

 tance, on motion of a citizen of Vermont, voted 

 to embrace hereafter the subject of butter 

 among the objects of their investigation, and 

 it occupies the prominent place in the Ver- 

 mont Association. O. S. Buss. 



Georgia, Vt., Aug. 1, 1870. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 MEDICAL TOPICS. 



MEDICAL MAN, 



Dysentery. 



The term dysentery is used to designate m- 

 flammation of the large intestine — the colon 

 and rectum — attended with mucus and bloody 

 discharges. It occurs more or less every 

 season, in sporadic form, and during some 

 seasons, and in some places, it prevails as a 

 frightful epidemic. July, August, September 

 and October are the months in which it most 

 frequently makes its appearance, although it 

 may occur at any season of the year. 



Dysentery is generally preceded by an or- 

 dinary diarrhoea, more or less severe, with 

 feculent discharges. Soon, however, the evac- 

 uations change to mucus, commingled with 

 blood. The quantity passed at each time is 

 generally small, but the act of defecation is 

 often repeated, slight discharges usually tak- 

 ing place every hour or two, and sometimes 

 after intervals of a few minutes only. The 

 quantity of mucus expelled is, in some cases, 

 abundant, and forms a jelly-like mass, called 

 in popular language slime, and by those are 

 familiar with the preparation of intestines for 

 sausages, they are compared to "the scrap- 

 ings of hogs' guts." A fluid resembling beef 

 brine, or the water in which beef has been 

 washed, is sometimes discharged in smaller or 

 larger quantities, but this is much more fre- 

 quent in epidemic than in sporadic dysentery. 

 Fecal matter of a green color is sometimes 



mixed with the evacuations, and occasionally 

 round hardened lumps of feces, called scyhala, 

 are expelled. In the course of the disease, 

 the discharges may become purulent — that is, 

 they may contain more or less of pus or mat- 

 ter ; but this is more common in the chronic 

 form of the disease. The inflammation of the 

 rectum occasions a sensation as if this portion 

 of the bowel were filled, and this leads to the 

 frequent desire to defecate, with as much 

 straining as the soreness of the parts will 

 allow. This desire to strain ineffectually ia 

 called tenesmus, and is, in many cases, ex- 

 ceedingly distressing. The griping or cholic 

 pains, which commonly precede the evacua- 

 tions are called tormina, and these, with the 

 tenesmus, are the chief sources of suffering in 

 this affection. 



There is usually some degree of fever pre- 

 sent in dysentery, but, in many cases, it is 

 very slight. In epidemic dysentery, however, 

 fever is a prominent feature of the disease, 

 and is commonly typhoid in type. The pulse 

 may or may not be accelerated ; the skin may 

 be natural in temperature, or it may be hotter 

 or cooler than natural ; the tongue may be 

 coated, or it may present nearly a natural ap- 

 pearance. The appetite is, in most cases, 

 much impaired, or wholly lost. The intellect 

 is usually unaffected, save in those malignant 

 cases which are much more frequent in epi- 

 demic than in sparodic dysentery. 



The duration of this disease, from the date 

 of the attack to convalescence, varies from 

 four to twenty-one days usually. No age is 

 exempt from a liability to this affection ; but 

 in the majority of cases, the patients are under 

 thirty-five years. Males seem to be more fre- 

 quently attacked than females. Climate and 

 the season of the year, evidently, have much 

 to do in the causation of dysentery, as is 

 evinced by the fact that this disease is vastly 

 more frequent in tropical and warm climates, 

 than in colder ones, and during the latter part 

 of summer and early part of autumn than 

 during any other portion of the year. 



The exciting or immediate causes of dysen- 

 tery may be atmospheric changes, excesses 

 in eating and drinking, indulgence in unripe 

 fruits or crude vegetables, fatigue, &c. But 

 in many cases it is not easy to trace its origin 

 to these causes, nor to any obvious cause ; and 

 this fact renders it probable that a special or 

 specific cause is generally involved in the pro- 

 duction of this affection. Sparodic dysentery 

 is never contagious. Whether epidemic dys- 

 entery is or is not contagious is a disputed 

 question among physicians of the greatest ce- 

 lebrity and possessing the best opportunities 

 for observation. 



Many cases of sporadic, and perhaps a few 

 cases of epidemic dysentery, would, doubtless, 

 end in recovery without medical treatment of 

 any kind ; yet there is reason to believe that 

 disease is sometimes arrested, that its duration 

 may be frequently abridged, and that the dis- 



