590 ON THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE. 
examine some cows belonging to two of his tenants. Mr. Bird, 
veterinary surgeon at Wem, accompanied me. 
One of the farmers had lost eight or nine milking cows, and 
had eight or nine more that were ill ; and so completely had he 
made up his mind that he should lose them all, that on my ex- 
pressing my regret that I had not had the opportunity of exa- 
mining any of those that were gone, he requested me to select one 
out of the remainder, and which should be immediately destroyed. 
The one that appeared to be the worst was immediately killed. 
There is a very good description of the disease in The Vete- 
rinarian of the last month, by Mr. John Barlow : but the cattle 
on which he attended have generally lived longer than was stated 
by him after the commencement of the attack, the period of ill- 
ness being usually twelve or even fourteen days. The first symp- 
tom was described to me to be cough. 
From what I have seen and heard of the disease, I am much 
inclined to believe that cough is, generally speaking, the earliest 
symptom. It may not be violent ; it may proceed but a little 
way beyond the huskiness which almost every cow occasionally 
has : there it is, and weeks — possibly months — pass before it is 
observed, or becomes seriously thought of. Several of the farm- 
ers with whom I had the opportunity of conversing, told me that 
nearly all their cattle had the husk during the whole of the 
winter, and, indeed, they thought that they had been husking 
more or less ever since they had the distemper of the last year. 
Is the husk insidiously paving the way for the development of 
this malady, or can it be traced to any connexion with the late 
epidemic? The grandfather of an apprentice of mine has lost 
upwards of twenty cows by this complaint, and he says that the 
disease in all his father’s cattle commenced with the husk. I 
shall wait with some impatience for the opinion of your corre- 
spondents on this point, for a most important one it is. Let us 
leave for awhile our disputes, unpleasant and injurious, and de- 
vote our opportunities and our talents to the noble objects of our 
profession — the welfare of the agriculturist, the advancement of 
science, and the rescuing of the quadruped from the disease and 
suffering to which he is so much exposed. 
I was speaking of the first or most prevalent symptom of this 
disease, — cough. To this succeeds an unthrifty appearance and 
loss of milk. Two or three days afterwards the breathing be- 
comes accelerated, and the pulse rises to 70 or even to 80 beats 
in a minute. The cough is soon attended by evident pain and 
difficulty. The breathing gets worse and worse — the appetite 
diminishes — and ultimately the animal becomes exhausted, and 
dies. 
