THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE. 
641 
A very few days elapsed before the 200 had increased to more 
than 500, and it was as much as all the hands upon the place 
could do to apply the dressings. Not a single animal was lost, 
although many were severely lame. In the whole, there were not 
more than six cases of disease in the fore feet, and that we attri- 
buted to the fore feet occasionally standing in places that had been 
occupied by the hind ones. 
The disease now assumed a different character in those cases in 
which it had not been energetically treated at first. Garget ap- 
peared in one or two of the quarters — not, except in very few 
cases, assuming the ulcerative character, but evidenced by consi- 
derable tumefaction, hardness, and pain. The loss of milk became 
very considerable. In the establishment on which he attended it 
averaged at least eighty gallons a-day, or a quart a cow, supposing 
the number of animals that were affected at the same time to be 
more than 300. In other establishments he understood the garget 
was more frequent and more obstinate than in his ; and he had no 
doubt that a very great number of cows in the vicinity of the metro- 
polis would be fattened and sold on account of the continuance of 
garget, and the diminution of milk. 
He tried the iodine ointment in these inflammations of the udder, 
but it only added fuel to fire, and strangely increased the evil. A 
strong chamomile decoction, in the proportion of a pound or more 
of the flowers to a gallon of water, he found most useful. It speedily 
abated the inflammation and dispersed the tumour. 
The commencement of the disease is scarely to be mistaken : 
the pain which the animal evinces by holding up and shaking one 
of the hind legs is a marked symptom ; and from which the vesi- 
cle at the heel, a certain degree of soreness before, and a slight 
tumefaction of the whole of the coronets, are seldom absent. The 
cow is very easily purged under this complaint : three ounces 
of sulphur will usually suffice, while the common pound dose of 
Epsom salts would produce superpurgation. The digestive organs 
do not appear to be at all affected. 
The Editor again expresses his thankfulness for the informa- 
tion which he gained from this conversation with Mr. Hill, and he 
entreats all those who may, unfortunately, have the opportunity of 
studying the character of the epidemic, to furnish him with the 
result of their experience. This is one of the valuable purposes 
to which our periodical should be applied. 
An old ulceration of the instep, to which the Editor has been 
long subject, has increased its extent and its torture within a few 
days to a degree which almost incapacitates him for mental exer- 
tion, Is this connected with the same atmospheric influence ? 
