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THE OX—-MISCELLANEOUS DISORDERS AND INJURIES. 275 
be furiously delirious, for treatment see Nervous Fever. Feed sparingly 
on light, wholesome food, keep the animal away from others, and before 
healthy cattle are admitted remove all refuse and disinfect the place with 
carbolic acid. 
NIERVOUS FEVER. 
Nervous fever is sometimes epidemic and may become very destructive 
by contagion. 
Syxeptoms.—Dry tongue, mouth and nose; loss of appetite and thirst; 
weakness; convulsions, sometimes violent; the animal totters and falls; 
dung at first dry, but becomes soft; then food passes undigested; foul tongue; 
much disagreeable saliva in the mouth; fever increases at night; delirium. 
TREATMENT.—In abrupt cases, with decided fever, begin with aconite, 
at intervals of two to four hours. When the fever subsides somewhat 
and great excitability ensues, give belladonna. For furious delirium and 
involuntary passages of dung, alternate belladonna with hyoscyamus, or, if 
the animal be unconscious, with stramonium. When no specilic remedy 
is indicated by the symptoms, or after the violent symptoms have subsided, 
leaving reduced muscular power, bryonia is advisable. Muriatic acid is 
required for great debility and dry mouth. For constipation with cold 
extremities, diarrhoea, or weakness after the disease is subdued veratrum 
is useful. Give the animal light, nutritious food, but sparingly, and provide 
a well-ventilated place, free from excitement. 
ANTHRAX.—SPLENIC FEVER. 
The term anthrax applies to a very infectious disease, known by differ- 
ent names, according to the type or stage. It generally occurs in hot 
weather, arising in rich, damp places, especially those in which there are 
much decaying vegetable matter and excessive moisture, as on dried-up 
lakes, ponds or water-courses, or on newly-turned ground where rich pas- 
tures have been. It is caused by any form of contagion which favors the 
transmission of the poison from a diseased to a healthy animal, as by food 
and drink, though it is seldom or never communicated by the air. Animals 
in poor condition put on rich food, or well-fed ones which have insufficient 
exercise, are more liable to its attacks. The virus is most potent in an 
animal that is yet alive or has just died or been killed, though it will remain 
active for many weeks in any weather and atmospheric: conditions. It is 
susceptible of transmission to man as well as to any of the domestic animals, 
being more often taken by contact of the virus with a break or abrasion of 
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