DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 441 



and experience of man, would be almost wholly exempt from 

 disease; that their appetites, unlike our own, may be held under 

 a constant control: that their diseases result purely from the 

 negligence or erroneous treatment of their owners. They are 

 either too much exposed to the rigors and changes of the 

 weather, or they are gorged with food, denied a sufficient quan- 

 tity, or supplied with such as is unwholesome. Here we learn 

 the chief causes of their maladies. Learn to prevent them, 

 instead of undertaking the tedious, unsuitable, and hopeless 

 task, of learning to cure them. Of all things, let the pro- 

 prietors of cattle renounce forever, the insane folly of oflfering 

 premiums for incurable diseases, and the hope of providing medi- 

 cines which, by a sort of miraculous operation, will enable men 

 to continue in the habit of exposing their animals to the constant 

 risk of such diseases. I have no infallible receipts to offer; on 

 the contrary, I wish to impress my readers strongly with the 

 idea, that all infallible receipts are infallible nonsense." 



In addition to these excellent observations, Mr. J. White 

 states: "Almost all diseases of cattle, arise either from exposure 

 to wet and cold weather, from their food being of a bad quality, 

 or deficient in quantity, or from being changed too suddenly from 

 poor, unwholesome keep, to rich pasture. It is necessary to 

 observe also, that the animal is more liable to be injured by 

 exposure to wet and cold, when previously enfeebled by bad 

 keep, old age, or any other cause, and particularly when brouglit 

 from a milder and more sheltered situation. I have scarcely met 

 with a disease that is not attributed, by those who have the 

 care of cattle, to a chill; and under this impression, the most 

 stimulating medicines are usually employed; among which we 

 generally find grains of paradise, ginger, long pepper, and mus- 

 tard, in large doses. It unfortunately happens that the disorders 

 arising from a chill, are often of an inflammatory nature, and 

 require a very different treatment. It must be granted, how- 

 ever, that cattle more frequently require stimulating medicines 

 than horses ; and that bleeding is not so often required, nor can 

 it be carried to such an extent in the former as in horses ; par- 

 ticularly in milk cows. Many of the medicines of which their 

 drinks or drenches are composed, are quite inert; some are nearly 

 so, and others are very nasty. Hog's dung, stale urine, and a 



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