230 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



treatment has produced a small proportion of cases of infective 

 maiiimitis. How many more such cases will develop if this treat- 

 ment becomes a popular domestic resort, applied by the dairyman 

 himself in all sorts of surroundings and with little or no antiseptic 

 precautions? Even then, however, the losses will by no means 

 approach the past mortality of 50 to 70 per cent, so that the economy 

 A'^'ill be immeasurable under even the worst conditions. A fair test 

 and judgment of this treatment, however, can be obtained only when 

 the administrator is trustworthy and painstaking, well acquainted 

 with bateriological antisepsis and with the general and special path- 

 ology of the bovine animal. 



The necessary precautions may be summarized as follows: 



(1) Provide an elastic rubber ball and tubes furnished with valves 

 to direct the current of air, as in a common Davidson syringe. 



(2) Fill the delivery tube for a short distance with cotton steril- 

 ized by prolonged heating in a water bath. 



(3) In the free end of the delivery tube fit a milking tube to be 

 inserted into the teat. 



(4) Sterilize the entire apparatus by boiling for 30 minutes, 

 and, without touching the milking tube, wrap it in a towel that has 

 been sterilized in a water bath or in live steam and dried. 



(5) Avoid drawing any milk from the teats; wash them and the 

 udder thoroughly with warm soapsuds; rinse off with well-boiled 

 and cooled water, and apply to the teats, and especially to their tips, 

 a 5 per cent solution of carbolic acid or lysol, taking care that the 

 teats are not allowed to touch any other body from the time they are 

 cleansed until the teat tube is inserted. It is well to rest the cleansed 

 and disinfected udder on a sterilized pad of cotton or a boiled towel. 



(6 ) The injecting apparatus is unwrajDped ; the teat tube, seized by 

 its attached end and kept from contact with any other body, is in- 

 serted into the teat, while an assistant working the rubber pump fills 

 the quarter as full as it will hold. The tube is now withdrawn and a 

 broad tape is tied around the free end of the teat to prevent escape of 

 the air. 



(7) The teat tube, which has been carefull}- preserved from pos- 

 sible contact with other bodies, is dipped in the carbolic acid solution 

 and inserted in a second teat, and the second quarter is inflated, and 

 so with the third and fourth. 



(8) The recumbent cow is kept resting on her breastbone, with the 

 head elevated, even if it should be necessary to pack around her with 

 straw bundles or to suspend the head by a halter. When lying on her 

 side she is liable to develop fatal bloating and to have belching of gas 

 and liquids, which, passing down the windpipe, cause fatal broncho- 

 pneumonia. 



