274 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



proper digestion by its power in decomposing the milk and 

 fitting it for assimilation. 



Distention of the Rumen. — (See Hoven.) 



Dropping After Calving. — (See Milk Fever.) 



Dysentery. — (See Consumption and Chronic Diar- 

 rhoea.) 



Ectopia Cordis. — This is a deformity sometimes met 

 ■with in calves at birth. The heart may be seen outside 

 of the chest, or the lower portion of the neck, or even 

 through an opening below the chest, and sometimes even 

 in the abdomen. The animal will have to be killed. 



Epizootic Aphtha, — Murrain. In some parts of the 

 Avorld, this disease is called murrain. It is one of the 

 epizootic diseases of cattle, attacking the feet and mouth, 

 and sometimes extending to the teats of the udder. 



Causes. Contagion is believed to be the cause, but I 

 never can be reconciled to belief in the repeated bug-bear 

 that contagion is the only cause of certain diseases. "We 

 all know, however, that when a disease is once established 

 it can affect others; but still we must consider that all 

 diseases, of whatever kind, must have had an origin aside 

 from any contagious element to produce it. This, I firmly 

 believe to be one of those diseases, depending not so much 

 upon contagion, as upon what Sydenham would call the 

 peculiar constitution of the year, exercising certain deleteri- 

 ous influences on the system, and soon followed by disease 

 of some portion or other of the body. 



Symptoms. Sore mouth, sore teats and sore feet ; elevated 

 vesicles within the mouth, and on the teats, which contain 

 pus, and soon discharge and dry up through the formation 

 of a scab — ^at which juncture fever and other constitutional 



