410 
THE C KOCH EES IN CATTLE. 
months ago, 1 happened to see a cow lying near a farmer’s house, 
quite unable to rise: she had been ill of the disease for three 
months, and, notwithstanding the specifics which the doctoress 
in attendance prescribed, they had no effect in alleviating the 
sufferings of the poor animal, and at last she (the doctoress) 
took her leave 
“ With sighs and sorrow, 
Despairing of her fee to-morrow.” 
A person passing at the time, who occupies a large orchard at 
the sea side, bought her for the price of her skin, as the owner 
thought she would never recover. The animal was conveyed in 
a cart, and safely lodged in the orchard, where there was a 
quantity of fine natural grass,—thus reversing the old adage, by 
being removed from “ the heather to the clover,” and she gradu¬ 
ally improved, and soon became quite well. The last time I saw 
the person, he stated to me that he would not part with her for 
as many pounds as he had paid shillings. 1 have invariably 
found this to be the best mode of treating the disease. Indeed, 
if attended to at first, there is every chance of the animal’s com¬ 
plete recovery. 
The symptoms of this disease, when observed at first, are pains 
in the feet, particularly in the fore feet, and enlargement of the 
small joints of the limbs. The animal becomes hide-bound, and 
the hind quarters so w T eak and contracted as to prevent her from 
standing, and in almost every case to deprive her of the power of 
progression. In this, the most severe kind of “ crochles,” I have 
seen the animal lying on a small plot of ground, and fed with a 
little grass or a few cabbage-leaves, till completely worn out 
with lying in one posture, without the power of change, and all 
over bruised, she has even refused to swallow any thing but 
meal and water. Death now closes the scene, and presents to 
the view a most pitiable object, with contracted limbs and almost 
fleshless bones. I have often thought anxiously of something 
which might tend to alleviate the sufferings of the animal, if 
not to check the progress of the disease; but I am sorry to say, 
that no local or general application has as yet produced any good 
effect. In the first stage of the disease I have observed blood¬ 
letting, and the administering of laxative medicine, to be of some 
service in arresting its progress for a little while; but when the 
animal was not removed to other pasture, the disease generally 
returned with double severity. 
Empirics abound with their specifics for this as well as almost 
every other disease, and to whom the ignorance and credulity of 
the lower orders of our peasantry present a wide field for imposi¬ 
tion. A singular case of this fell under my own observation, 
