THE TREATMENT OF PLEURISY IN CATTLE. 
81 
weather being exceedingly mild for a long time previous to this, 
it may be reasonably concluded that such an extremely sudden 
transition of it would be succeeded by disease, in despite of the 
most prudent management. How much more hazardous and serious 
must the effects of such a violent change be to those cattle whose 
owners appear to be perfectly reckless about their comfort and 
security against the attack of disease. This was particularly mani- 
fested in the conduct of the farmers in our district, and can be attri- 
buted to nothing but a lack of information, or a mistaken notion of 
saving. 
It certainly must be allowed, that we are in a manner secluded 
from those privileges and means of scientific progression and mental 
attainment generally with which so many are profusely served. 
The rarity of those privileges of instruction with us, and the 
meagreness of them, fully account for the innumerable foolish and 
magical notions respecting the treatment of disease that abound in 
the minds of so many persons in this part of the world. 
I had, a short time ago, the pain of witnessing an abundant ex- 
hibition of this preposterousness by a person who was called, prior 
to me, to attend a cow suffering under pleurisy ; and I firmly 
believe that a more arduous task cannot be assigned to man, than 
to dispossess such a person of his worse than foolish preposses- 
sions, the filaments of whose roots extend to many generations 
past. There is hogs’ dung, old chamberley, soot, and heaps of 
abominable trash — in fact, nothing seems too filthy as a medicine 
for a cow. 
This disease has proved fatal to a few cattle, and I am persuaded 
to a very few, except those whose owners have either neglected 
them until fatal symptoms were present, or submitted to a most 
injudicious mode of treatment. Its primary seat is, unquestionably, 
in the serous membranes of the chest ; but, as in other diseases of 
this kind, the inflammation, being highly diffusive, frequently ex- 
tends itself through the serous membranes generally ; and, as a 
natural consequence of the connexion subsisting between them and 
the mucous linings, it is ere long, in a greater or less degree, ex- 
tended to them also. 
When the animal is first discovered to be ailing, she is usually 
standing with her hind and fore feet placed near each other, and 
her back formed into a kind of arch. The coat is standing nearly 
erect, and she presents, upon the whole, a crouching, shivering, 
appearance, as if almost starved to death. The respiration is accele- 
rated, and often suddenly interrupted, which extorts from her an 
audible grunt ; and this, in the same act of expiration, is sometimes 
quickly succeeded by several very short ones. The appetite and the 
secretion of milk are both diminished. There appears to be general 
tenderness ; for wherever the animal is touched she shrinks, and 
