647 
ON SWELLING UNDER THE JAW IN CATTLE. 
By Mr. J. H. Oliff, Gasberton. 
Haying been a subscriber to, and reader of your valuable 
periodical. The Veterinarian, for some months, with not a 
little pleasure, and I hope profit too, I beg to hand you a very 
short paper on the treatment of indurated tumours in the sub- 
maxillary and other glands included in the channel of the jaws 
of cattle, as practised by a friend of mine, a medical gentleman. 
In the summer of 1842, one of his store heifers was observed 
to be very considerably swollen under and between the jaws, so 
much so as to impede her breathing, which might be heard at a 
considerable distance, and threatening suffocation. He had her 
caught and examined, and finding the swelling to be of that 
nature which is designated scirrhous, or indurated, he procured 
a piece of rough common brick, and rubbed it until the part 
was tender. Then making a saturated solution of sulphate of 
copper in sulphuric acid, he traced a line round the edge of the 
tumour with the solution, about three-quarters of an inch in 
breadth, so as to include the whole of it, and finished by making 
some cruciform lines from one edge to the other, of the same 
breadth : not that there is any virtue in the sign of the cross in 
such a case, but if more of the surface is touched with the so- 
lution, it causes a too extensive sloughing of the cuticle, which 
is to be avoided. 
The dressing was repeated in the course of a few weeks, and 
when the animal was taken up to the straw-yard, at the latter 
end of the year, the tumour was found completely reduced, and 
she afterwards fed as kindly as any of her fellows. 
A great deal has been said of late in The Veterinarian 
about indurated tumours and their successful treatment ; and if 
you consider there is any thing in the above that will in the least 
contribute to the store of veterinary information on that sub- 
ject, and will save any poor beast from the knacker’s knife, 
you are at liberty to insert, and I, too, should be grateful to see 
it in the pages of The Veterinarian ; but let it by no means 
appear to the exclusion of more valuable and interesting matter. 
