73 
OBSERVATIONS, CASES, &c. 
By W. Cox, M.R.C.V.S. 
The Danger of administering Drenches through Bottles 
INSTEAD OF DliENCH-HORNS. 
Your correspondents have at different times brought before 
your readers the danger of giving drenches to animals. In The 
Veterinarian for September 1848 there is a communication 
from myself, wherein I endeavoured to impress upon the minds of 
your readers that a bottle was more dangerous to use than a drench- 
horn. The following case will in part prove this : — On the 30th of 
April last, J. Goodwin Johnson, Esq., of Mappleton, requested my 
attendance on a cow that was making foul water (red-water), for 
which I was to take with me the necessary remedies. I found the 
symptoms not very aggravated or acute. There was no palpitation 
of the heart; the pulse was 80 per minute; her breathing tranquil ; 
and there was no grunting or groaning. She stood up, eating a 
little hay : her urine was the colour of dark porter. Being very 
busy at the time, I left an astringent draught, to be given in warm 
water, immediately, by Mr. Johnson’s men, and an active purge 
to be administered an hour afterwards. After leaving directions as 
to regimen, &c. I departed. Mr. Johnson during the while was 
present. On my return, I called to see the cow, and found her 
dead. On making inquiry, I found the draught had been adminis- 
tered with a bottle. She was unwilling to take it, and hoosed 
several times during the operation, and as soon as this was over 
became very ill. Seeing this, they did not wait an hour before 
the purge was given, and by this haste completed her destruction. 
I had no hesitation in telling Mr. Johnson’s men that the medi- 
cine had gone down the windpipe, and that thereby the animal 
had been suffocated. I expressed a desire to see her opened. 
On the following day, May 1, I was privately informed that 
the cow had been sent in a cart to one Mr. Cope, a practitioner 
in this place, no communication of any such proceeding having 
been made to me. Now, this person is one of a class which are 
imposing upon the people in this country by calling themselves 
“ veterinary surgeons,’’ while they are no such thing. This gen- 
tleman has never passed the College. Availing myself of my pri- 
vate information, I attended, and I took in with me Mr. Charles 
Souter, a smith and farrier, a person who has done a good deal of 
cow doctoring in his time, but is now advanced in years. 
Post-mortem examination. — All the internal viscera were 
