218 



HOLSTEIN-FRIESIAN CATTLE. 



"The symptoms of diarrhea may appear so promptly after birth as to lead 

 to the idea that the cause already existed in the body of the calf, and it usually 

 shows itself before the end of the second week. It may be preceded by consti- 

 pation, as in retained meconium, or by fetid eructations and colicky pains, as 

 in acute indigestion. The tail is stained by the liquid dejections, which are at 

 first simply soft and mixed with mucus with a sour odor, accompanied by a 

 peculiar and characteristic fetor (suggesting rotten cheese), which continually 

 grows worse. The amount of water and of mucus steadily increases, the nor- 

 mal predominance of fatty matters becoming modified by the presence of a 

 considerable amount of undigested caseine, which is not present in the healthy 

 feces, and in acute cases death may result in one or two days from the com- 

 bined drain of the system, and the poisoning by the absorbed products of the 

 decomposition in the stomach and bowels. When the case is prolonged the 

 passages, at first five or six per day, increase to fifteen or twenty, and pass with 

 more and more straining, so that they are projected from the animal in a liquid 

 stream. The color of the feces, at first yellow, becomes a lighter grayish yel- 

 low, or a dirty white (hence the name white scour; , and the fetor becomes 

 intolerable. At first the calf retains its appetite, but as the severity of the dis- 

 ease increases the animal shows less and less disposition to suck and has lost all 

 vivacity, lying dull and listless, and when raised walking weakly and unstead- 

 ily. Flesh is lost rapidly, the hair stands erect, the skin gets dry and scurfy, 

 the nose is dry and hot, or this condition alternates with a moist and cool one. 

 By this time the mouth and skin, as well as the breath and dung, exhale the 

 peculiar, penetrating, sour, offensive odor, and the poor calf has become an 

 object of disgust to all that approach it. At first and unless inflammation of 

 the stomach and bowels supervenes (and unless the affection has started an 



SIR NETHERLAND CLOTHILDE, No. 8517 H. F. H. B. 



Sire, Clothilde 4tb/s Imperial, Advanced Registry No. 42. Dam, Netherland Princess, 

 Advanced Registry No. 496. His thirteen nearest female ancestors, all there are 

 in this country, have records that average 16,052 Ibs. 3 oz. of milk in a year, and 

 19 Ibs. 15 oz. butter in a week, while nine of the nearest ancestors average 21 Ibs. 

 8 oz. butter in a week, two being two years old. 



