549 
ON THE TREATMENT OF FOOT-ROT IN CATTLE. 
Mr. M. PoTTiE, Yoker, near Glasgoiv, 
It has been ordained, for wise purposes, that we should have 
a tendency to consider things which are similar in some respects 
as similar in all; and, although we have long known that this 
principle is apt to produce error, there are still very few, perhaps 
none, who can constantly remember, and act as if they remem¬ 
bered, that two things may be exceedingly alike in one or two 
relations, and yet altogether different in others. 
We are called to treat a few cases of foot-rot in cattle, and 
there are heat, pain on pressure, swelling, and lameness. The 
treatment which we adopt with so much advantage, when similar 
symptoms appear in the foot of the horse, is immediately adopted 
here, and an analogous result is expected; but w^e are surprised 
and disappointed to find it quite different. After many experi¬ 
ments, but which were never regarded as experiments, it becomes 
apparent that the disease is not of the same nature as that which 
produces the same symptoms in the horse. Poultices, fomenta¬ 
tions, cooling lotions, and bleeding, whether local or general, if 
not positively injurious, have not the slightest curative power 
over foul in the foot. Each has been tried, alone and in com¬ 
bination, and not once or twice, but often. Purgatives and cold 
lotions, when operating together, retard the disease, but do not 
cure. 
The readers of The Veterinarian are aware that the inflam¬ 
matory symptoms which characterize foot-rot in the ox exist for 
several days; that, at the end of from two to eight or nine days, an 
abscess appears and bursts, either at the side of the foot or between 
the toes; that the effects of the first attack are not gone when 
another takes place; and that this is followed by another and 
another, until the foot becomes completely disorganized, and the 
patient reduced to a skeleton. By this time the toes are thrown 
far apart, the bones are carious, there are sinuses in all directions, 
and an immense quantity of matter is discharged. In this state 
a cow, under bad management, often continues for six or twelve 
months. 
All this, however, if the patient is put under proper treatment 
from the beginning, may be easily and certainly avoided. All the 
practitioner has to do, is to produce a slough, of considerable 
thickness and extent, from between the toes. There are several 
escharotics that will do this, but some are too strong and some 
too weak : the former excite an intolerable degree of pain; the 
latter operate too slowly, requiring several applications, and often 
not producing mortification until an abscess has formed, when 
VOL. Mil. 4 F 
