300 HOOVE. 



for only two or three hours a day — and driven in at mid-day, 

 when their hunger is already, to a good extent, satisfied. 

 This continued two or three days entirely prevents the danger 

 of hoove. 



When sheep are discovered to be " hooven," they should 

 be driven gently about for an hour. If swoUen to a very 

 dangerous extent, and the distress and oppression are 

 evidently increasing, they must be relieved by mechanical ' 

 means. Those provided with such instruments either pass a 

 flexible tube with a rounded perforated end* down the throat 

 into the stomach, through which the pent-up gas escapes, or 

 they plunge a trocar (a sharp stylet or puncturing instrument 

 covered with a canula or sheath,) into the paunch through the 

 left flank. The trocar is withdrawn, leaving its sheath in the 

 wound, which keeps the openings in the side and paunch 

 opposite to each other, thus allowing a freer exit to the gas, 

 and preventing the other matters forced along with it from 

 being left within the cavity of the abdomen or belly. Any 

 solid or semi-solid matter deposited there leads to inflamma- 

 tion, and ultimately, if in any considerable quantity, to death. 

 If a pocket knife is used instead of a trocar, the above 

 dangers are incurred ; but it is often the only available 

 instrument at hand, and generally proves a safe one. The 

 place for inserting it is in the left flank, half way between the 

 haunch and ribs, and well up toward the back bone. 



It is considered safest always to administer a purgative — 

 usually one or two ounces of epsom salts with a drachm of 

 powdered ginger — after a severe attack of hoove. Mr. 

 Spooner prescribes: — " Sulphate of magnesia two oz., ginger 

 one dr., gentian two dr., chloride of lime half dr., to be dis- 

 solved in a pint of warm water or gruel." 



If gas continues to be developed, Mr. Touatt recommends 

 the introduction into the stomach of chloride of lime — a 

 drachm dissolved in a gill of water — either by means of a 

 horn or through the canula of the trocar. This would also 

 be an admirable remedy to administer (down the throat) in 

 earlier stages of the disease when the case was not urgent, or 

 the opening of the paunch yet called for. Once in the paunch 

 it would produce chemical results which would at once relieve 

 the parts of their unnatural distension. Sulphuric ether, if 



* Messrs. Touatt and Spooner mention such an instrument (liaving a stylet 

 within it which is withdrawn after its insertion into the stomach,) invented by Dr. 

 Mimro. I have never seen it. Both writers state that its use is difBcult and danger- 

 ous in unpracticed hands ; and Mr. Yooatt expresses a preference for the trocar. 



