188 The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser. 



ive organs and liver. Turnips and other saccharine roots, 

 though perfectly safe from ordinary soils, are dangerous 

 from these, and in the natural meadows and woods the 

 young shoots of resinous trees (coniferaB) and the acrid 

 plants of the ranunculus, colcJiicum and asdepias families, 

 etc., are held to produce it. Its prevalence in woods and 

 uncultivated meadows has procured for it in almost all 

 European countries some name equivalent to wood disease. 

 An important element in the causation is the existence of 

 soil rich ia organic matter and soured by the stagnation 

 of water owing to a clay or otherwise impervious subsoil. 

 Cows are very susceptible just after calving 'and often per- 

 ish. 



Symptoms. Dullness, languor, weakness, especially of 

 the hind hmbs, trembling, surface coldness, staring coat, 

 dry muzzle, hot mouth and horns and diminution of the 

 milk which is white and frothy and may throw down a red- 

 dish sediment. Appetite is lost, thirst ardent, pulse small 

 and weak, beats of the heart tumultuous, amounting to palpi- 

 tation in the parturient cases, bowels at first relaxed after- 

 ward costive, abdomen tender, urine passed frequently in 

 small quantity and often with suffering. Colicky pains 

 are often a marked symptom when the irritation of the 

 bowels is extreme. Delirium even wUl set in in bad cases 

 and death usually supervenes on a state of extreme pros- 

 tration. 



Prevention may be sought in thorough drainage; in 

 restricting the allowance of objectionable food and supple- 

 menting it with sound dry grain and fodder ; in the avoid- 

 ance of damp, woody and natural meadows in spring until 

 there is a good growth of grass, and in the rejection of hay 

 from faulty pastures containing an excess of acrid plants. 



Treatment. At the onset of the disease nothing succeeds 

 better than a free evacuation of the bowels and depletion 

 of the portal vein and liver by an active purgative. When 

 there is no abdominal pain or other sign of inflammatioii 

 of the bowels, salts or any other active purgative mil suf • 



