DROPPING AFTER CALVING. 
75 
Epsom salts ibj, spirits nitre 3jss, and linseed oil Ifej, in plenty of 
thin gruel; or, if not able to get gruel, hot water, and given to 
the animal as hot as she can possibly bear it; I also order from 
four to six ounces of salts to be given in gruel every six hours 
afterwards : plenty of ginger is always boiled with the gruel. If 
my patient is not relieved in twenty-four hours, and the state of 
the pulse permits it, I bleed again, and repeat the salts, oil, &c. 
Out of six cases in the last two months, five perfectly recovered. 
In one case, a very fat old cow that had twice before been my 
patient with the same disease, I took away three gallons of blood, 
and gave the salts, oil, &c., to which I added two drachms of 
calomel. On my second visit there was an abundant evacuation 
of black foetid dung; she was still unable to rise, but there was 
evidently great improvement, for she did not moan or look so 
dull, her head was up, and she noticed her calf. 
The bag was much inflamed and enormously swelled, not with 
good milk, but with matter and coagulated milk, commonly 
called dregs. A cordial draught was given ; the bag was fo¬ 
mented with hot water, and then well rubbed with soap liniment 
three or four times a-day: plenty of thick gruel was given fre¬ 
quently, in which was dissolved, night and morning, half an 
ouce each of nitre and sal ammoniac, and some cordial powder. 
She got up in the course of the day, and ate a little bran, mixed 
with hay chaff, which was all that was allowed her for some 
days. She mended very fast; the bag soon got well, and she 
fattened a fine calf. 
, Will you, or some of your able correspondents, explain the 
seat of this disease? It has been supposed to be caused by in¬ 
flammation of the womb; but, in several cases that I have ex¬ 
amined after death, I have found the womb and all other internal 
organs perfectly healthy. 
Is it not caused by the animal being in too plethoric a state at 
the time of calving, as but few cases of it occur where the ani¬ 
mal is in low condition, although I have met with it when the 
animal was very poor, but, then, she had been highly fed for the 
last few weeks? Is the brain the seat of disease, or the digest¬ 
ive organs ? 
I remember, on examining a cow that died after lying six days 
without our being able to get any medicine to operate, although 
gallons of gruel were given daily, that the many plus, or third 
stomach, was as hard and as dry as if it had lain many days 
in the summer’s sun. The gall-bladder was distended with thick, 
almost black bile, but all the other organs appeared healthy. 
