AMONG CATTLE IN IRELAND IN 1842. 
5a5 
judicious to exhibit purgatives. Calomel is a medicine of which 
the only effect to be dreaded in the present disease is superpurga- 
tion and inflammation of the intestines; to avoid which, it is de- 
sirable to exhibit the calomel in combination with opium. The 
reason why I prefer emetine to tartar emetic is. that it has all the 
sedative and nauseating effects of the latter medicine, without 
having nearly so great a tendency to produce inflammation of the 
bowels. Much nicety is required in the application of these 
medicines, both in the quantities of each dose, and the repetition 
of their administration. I do not think that persons entirely un- 
acquainted with medical matters should be entrusted with the 
treatment. I should, therefore, recommend the assistance of a 
neighbouring veterinary surgeon, or even a human practitioner, if 
the latter would condescend to give his advice on the subject. 
The practice of entrusting the treatment of cattle, when labour- 
ing under the effects of disease, to servants, is highly reprehen- 
sible. The masters of such persons vaunt the great experience of 
this class of men — the whole of which experience amounts to their 
being frequently with the cattle. On the same principle, as well 
might a valet turn physician to his master, or a footman ac- 
coucheur to his mistress. 
Mode of giving Medicine . — In giving medicine to cattle, under 
no circumstance is it judicious to administer it in the form of pills 
or balls. It should invariably be given in solution. Veterinary 
surgeons who prescribe “ balls” for cattle, I assert, in the most 
unqualified manner, are either lamentably ignorant of that de- 
partment of their profession which relates to cattle, or are dis- 
honest to their employers, prescribing medicine in the form of 
balls, that they may, with some seeming degree of justice, charge 
the usual price of a horse-ball for what, in a state requisite to be 
given in the form of solution, would not be thought of sufficient 
value for more than a quarter of the sum. It is easy to make as- 
sertions. I shall, however, make none, without also giving sound 
evidence of their veracity. 
The reason why balls are an improper form in which to give 
medicines to cattle, depends on the peculiar arrangement and form 
of the stomachs of this class of animals. While the horse has but 
one stomach, and that of small dimensions, all animals that rumi- 
nate have no less than four. When the horse has once swallowed 
any food, it passes immediately on into the intestines, being suf- 
ficiently acted upon by the juices of the stomach. It is impos- 
sible in the horse for any food once .swallowed to again regain 
the mouth, there being a valvular arrangement at the entrance 
into the stomach, which only admits of the passage of the food 
into it, but effectually prevents its returning, excepting in some 
