24 
ON HEPATITIS IN THE OX. 
probably with dark-coloured bile: but in other cases diarrhoea 
commences. In either state of the bowels neat cattle Avill often 
linger on a life of misery for many months until they are ren¬ 
dered useless by a disease which, probably, might have been 
relieved if an active treatment had been adopted early enough to 
have arrested the morbid action. 
In the confined state of the bowels, many of these dunces admit 
of a perfect cure. Alterative doses of calomel, carried off by an oily 
mixture, often succeed; but cases both of dry rot and diarrheea 
occur, in which the disease will only yield to the influence of 
calomel, so as to enable the animals to be got into a better state of 
condition as regards their preparation for the butcher. Many 
graziers annually endure serious losses from chronic inflammation 
of the liver. This may arise from various causes, as from inat¬ 
tention, want of confidence in the skill of the veterinarian, or from 
their being credulous as to the effect of some boasted specific 
remedy. 
The terminations of acute inflammation of the liver in neat cattle 
are morbid smallness of that gland, or a contraction of substance, 
which is of a dark purple colour. The gall-bladder is often found 
distended with turbid bile of a pale yellow hue. The effect of this 
variety of termination is chronic diarrhoea, and the alvine excre¬ 
tions are usually of a light colour. Occasionally the liver is found 
indurated, dry, fragile, and of a red clay colour; in which case 
the animal is excessively yellow, the bowels are unusually con¬ 
stipated, and the excrement resembles, both in colour and con¬ 
sistence, that of a horse living on hay that has undergone too high 
a degree of fermentation. In morbid enlargement of the liver, 
that viscus presents various alterations of structure, as a spongy 
substance, thickened and firm texture, and scirrhosities which often 
contain curdy pus. Occasionally ascites accompanies this termi¬ 
nation, which may originate from contiguity of surface; as the 
peritoneum is frequently found thickened and slightly inflamed. 
It is seldom that neat cattle die from acute hepatitis; and when 
that is the case, it commonly happens to one of those animals in 
which the disorder was at first recognized by violent purging. 
The liver is then found engorged with blood and the mucous coat 
of the bowels much inflamed. 
