Secondary and Functional Diseases of the Liver. 441 • 



milk or buttermilk. If it is needful to tempt the appetite in a flesh- 

 fed animal this should not be done by rich, fat gravies, highly 

 spiced animal food, or rich saccharine puddings, but rather by 

 the addition of a little pure juice of lean meat, or some well 

 skimmed beef tea. 



It is as important to regulate the quantity as the quality of the 

 food as the heavy feeder will over-charge the liver as much by an 

 excess of otherwise wholesome food, as will the ordinary animal 

 by the indigestible and unwholesome articles. As a rule the 

 improved breeds of meat producing animals, have acquired such 

 facility in fat production that much of the surplus is largely and 

 profitably disposed of in this way, and in their short lives little 

 obvious evil comes of the over-feeding, but in cases in which 

 this outlet proves insufficient, as in horses and dogs that are 

 highly fed on stimulating or saccharine diet, and which are kept 

 for the natural term of their lives, with little exercise, the evil 

 tends to reach a point of danger. Nursing mothers and dairy 

 cows find a measure of safety in the free flow of milk and the 

 yield of butter, but breeding cows that have been improved till 

 they have no longer a capacity for milking, but must have their 

 calves raised on the milk of other and milking strains are cor- 

 respondingly liable to suffer. 



Exercise in the Open Air. As enforced idleness, on a full diet 

 and in a warm and moist environment is a main cause of hepatic 

 disorder, so abundant exercise in the open air and especially in a 

 cool season is beneficial in a marked degree. Beside the bracing 

 effect on the digestive organs and the improvement of the general 

 tone of the system, the action of the muscles in hastening the cir- 

 culation greatly favors the removal and elimination of waste 

 matters. Still more advantageous is the increased activity of the 

 respiration and the aspiratory power of the chest in at once un- 

 loading the portal system and the liver by hastening the progress 

 of the hepatic blood into the vena cava and right heart, and in 

 furnishing an abundant supply of oxygen for the disintegration of 

 the albuminoids and amylaceous products. Such exercise must 

 of course be adapted to the condition of the animal and its power 

 of sustaining muscular work, but judiciously employed, it is one 

 of the most effective agencies in correcting and improving hepatic 

 disorder or hepatic torpor. Idle horses, the victims of obstinate 



