88 
ON RED-WATER IN CATTLE. 
or plants. Some years since, it was hinted by a gentleman who 
wrote on the subject, that turnips were a probable cause. I have 
had occasion to consider the matter, and I have also been at some 
trouble to obtain the opinions of other very respectable professional 
gentlemen ; and, along with them, I have arrived at the conclusion 
that turnips are a principal cause of red-water, taken in com- 
bination with other things, &c. When the turnips come early to 
maturity in the autumn, and the winter proves mild, the tops grow 
very rapidly and luxuriantly in the spring. The consequence is, 
that the bulbs are drained of their succulent properties in order to 
supply this superabundant foliage, the centre of the bulb becoming 
soft, often hollow, and sometimes putrid. The remaining walls, of 
course, are very dry, hard, and woody — of a tough and corky 
nature, very difficult to digest, and not affording that degree of 
nourishment, nor of that nature which is generally expected ; rather 
proving hot and stimulating to the stomach, and tending to produce 
inflammatory diathesis. In such a season, and at the time of the 
season supposed, the straw has become very dry indeed, and 
cattle would require a large quantity of water to make it digestible. 
I am afraid the owner, often trusting to the turnips, gives water 
sparingly, or it may be irregularly ; and thus the animal suffers, 
and suffers seriously, from thirst. Of itself, this would give a 
tendency, or more than a tendency, to inflammation. 
It has appeared to me that a more remote cause may be found in 
moulting. The greater part of cows that are affected with red- 
water are so between the 1st of January and the end of May, pre- 
cisely the season when the change of hair takes places. There 
are also some cases in autumn but comparatively few in winter 
or summer. To professional men the sympathy that exists between 
the skin and digestive system is well known. Is that system 
deranged by disease, so surely are the integuments affected. To 
fleshers, dealers, and graziers, the healthy feeling of the skin is 
very familiar : in fact, these gentlemen depend more on the index 
the skin affords as to the fattening property of the animal, than 
they do on the conformation of parts. 
Generally cattle are kept very warm during winter, but in spring 
are often carelessly exposed to sudden blasts of cold and chilly 
winds, the hair thin, the skin almost naked, the old coat gone or 
partially so, and the new one to be furnished at the expense of 
the constitution. 
To horses who are said to have more nerve than cattle, the 
change alluded to often proves a source of much irritation and 
constitutional disturbance. 
Grooms are ever on the alert to meet the exigencies peculiar to 
this time of weakness and constitutional debility. Horses are 
