TREATMENT OF SOME VALUABLE CATTLE. 
537 
vena cava seemed affected. After a long day’s pasture, the beast 
is much worse. There is difficulty of breathing, and suffused eyes 
and symptoms of cerebral disturbance mostly supervene. There 
is, when these symptoms are most intense, no pulse to be felt about 
the head or breast: except at the heart itself it is imperceptible at 
the humeral artery. Her milk is uniformly bloody, the urine oc- 
casionally so, and she habitually purges. 
I have don^ little in the way of treatment. Once, at the owner’s 
request, bleeding was attempted; but, although the jugular was cut- 
down upon and opened with a scalpel, nothing but a half-coagu- 
lated brownish substance escaped. I may, however, mention, that 
the beast, subsequently to this attempt at blood-letting, was kept 
up some time, and in about six hours, the wound not being pinned, 
some ounces of semi-fluid blood escaped. She has been taking 
mercury with diuretics, which seem to have no other good effect 
than to render her milk less bloody. 
There appears to me some obstruction in the anterior cava, but 
what I cannot divine. Lately there are several flabby unhealthy 
tumours formed in various parts of the head and neck, which, how- 
ever, neither discharge nor heal, but, more than any thing, ap- 
pear inclined to turn gangrenous. The owner seems to be getting 
tired of the beast, and, though I endeavour to persuade him other- 
wise, promising attendance, &c. gratis, I think he seems deter- 
mined to sell her : still, it being a rare case, I thought I would 
mention it, as I should be glad of another opinion if mine does not 
appear the proper diagnosis. 
I have also under care a mare which was hurt in consequence 
of the off hind leg doubling under her, the stifle and metatarsal 
bone coming in contact. The other leg was also bent, but not under 
the body, as was the case with this. The accident happened 
during copulation. 
May 15th . — The mare walked home, a distance of eight miles, 
slightly lame for the first four miles, but excessively so during the 
latter part of her journey. 
On the following day I was requested to see her. There was 
considerable enlargement at the point of the os calcis, extending 
several inches along the gastrocnemii tendons each way : the limb 
was almost straightened to relax them. When endeavouring to 
walk, the foot and limb generally were brought forward tolerably 
well; but when the foot was set down and made a fixed point, any 
farther efforts to flex the fetlock and pastern, or extend the hock, 
were powerless ; yet if the attempt was, for instance, made more 
determinedly than usual, a kind of lateral jerk in the tendon gas- 
trocnemius internus was manifest, accompanied sometimes with a 
sharp noise, yet scarcely heard. This led me to query whether the 
VOL. XVII. 4 B 
