THE PREVAILING DISEASE IN CATTLE, SHEEP, &c. 183 
water) may be applied to the feet twice a-day. Bleeding is 
seldom if ever necessary, as the disease is rather inclined to a 
typhoid character, and the debility induced by bleeding increases 
the tendency of the disease to assume this character, and causes 
the blisters to ulcerate and slough. Moreover, from the weak 
state to which the animal is reduced in consequence of the ten- 
derness of its tongue and gums preventing it from taking food 
for one, two, or three days, it is evident the bleeding is not ad- 
missible, unless active inflammation occurs. 
On the contrary, great care is necessary in nursing the animal 
with gruel and soft food, which, if warm, should not be given 
above blood-heat. Raw turnips should be given in thin slices, 
and it may be necessary to put a slice a few times into the ani- 
mal's mouth to induce it to eat, which, when it has begun to do, 
it will generally continue without further trouble. Care must be 
taken to keep the animals’ standing clean by giving them plenty 
of clean dry straw, and removing the dung as often as possible : 
unless care is taken in this respect, the sloughing of the feet ex- 
tends, and the animal, especially when tied to the stake, is very 
apt to bruise its knees and other parts of the body, which is often 
followed by extensive sloughing of these parts. In such circum- 
stances, if due precaution is not used, and the animal is not al- 
lowed more freedom, there is some risk of these injuries proving 
fatal by the irritation which they produce. These results, how- 
ever, are not to be referred to the disease itself, but are entirely 
the effects of neglect and mismanagement. 
The same treatment is required for sheep and pigs, the dose 
of the medicine for them being about one-sixth part. It is im- 
possible, in many places, to get a large flock of sheep into a shel- 
tered situation, so as to keep their feet dry ; but if they were 
folded on a dry place, and a quantity of dry straw given them 
daily, it would be of great service. Swine are seldom so nume- 
rous but they may be got under cover and made dry. Upwards 
of fifty were affected in one establishment here, and they were 
put into a dry place and treated as recommended above, and all 
recovered in about a week. 
Prejudice has arisen here against the milk yielded by cows 
labouring under murrain, but as far as I have seen it is unfounded. 
I tasted some, and knew no change in its perceptible qualities; 
and although 1 drank off a large tumblerful, I experienced no un- 
pleasant feelings from so doing. In the cases where there is fever 
and much increase in the frequency of the pulse, there must be 
more or less alteration of the secretions, both in quantity and 
quality. In those cases, however, where, from improper treatment 
in milking, abscesses form in the udder, of course, whether there 
