PALSY IN CATTLE. 
7L 
fully examine the nature of the case and the probability of a 
successful termination of it. 
After a few years’ practice you will probably be able to consult 
your own experience in the treatment of this disease : and I will tell 
you what that will be — that if the progress of the disease has been 
slow, and you have been enabled to combat it, while the animal can 
still toddle about you will generally succeed ; but not so often after 
the palsy has been perfectly established, and the animal has been 
down more than two or three days. Also, after a case of sudden 
attack if the patient has not been down longer than this time, but 
not so surely afterwards. Therefore with the consent, or at the 
request of the owner, you will see what the medical treatment of a 
few days will effect ; but you will not prolong it if rapid emaciation 
is coming on, or the character of the disease and the value of 
the meat appears to be changing : and one thing I am sure that 
you will not do, — you will not brutally fracture a limb in order to 
conceal from the butcher or the public the true cause of the 
lameness. 
Treatment. Bleeding . — To a considerable degree the different 
character of the disease in the horse and in cattle will require a 
different mode of treatment. There has not been so much ex- 
posure to external injury, nor will there be so much inflamma- 
tion of the spine and its membranes, exciting general fever, 
and thus destroying the patient : but if the attack is sudden and 
acute, or chronic rheumatism is degenerating into palsy, there will 
generally be fever to a certain extent, and there will be latent 
inflammation, which, in order to procure a successful termination, 
it will be necessary to subdue: therefore bleeding will be gene- 
rally indicated. The indications of debility must be of a decisive 
character in order to forbid this remedial measure. If you 
bleed at all, you will probably abstract the vital fluid somewhat 
copiously. You will not forget the golden rule, in most cases — 
the altered character of the pulse must be your signal for stop- 
ping the bleeding. One bleeding can rarely do harm, and it 
may be productive of incalculable good : it will certainly do so 
if there has been effusion of blood or inflammation in the spinal 
cord. It may do good even if there has been serous effusion, 
for the absorbents may be roused to do their duty : they are 
the secondary depletions that wear down the strength of the 
patient. 
Purging . — The animal system of nerves can rarely be seriously 
affected without the organic ones speedily sympathizing. There 
is not a more constant accompaniment of paralysis in the quad- 
ruped than constipation, and even more so in cattle than in the 
horse. It is exceedingly difficult to remove, and until it is 
