USE AND ABUSE OF STRONG PURGATIVES IN CATTLE. 421 
for we find, even in the best written treatises of the present day, 
a great variety of stimulants and aromatics prescribed in all their 
drenches. 
The disorder commonly named fellon, which cowleeches con¬ 
sider as a cold, is for a time alleviated by the administration of 
one or two of their fellon drinks, which are compounded of 
various strong stimulants, as long pepper, mustard, grains of 
paradise, &c.; but their modus optraiidl I can in no other way 
account for than as they exercise their stimulating properties upon 
the stomachs, in the beneficial effects of which, in a short time, 
the whole system must participate. Cases are of daily occurrence 
where a deep-milked cow gradually ceases her usual supply 
without the owner’s observations of premonitory symptoms, or of 
which, if even discerned, they are heedless, until diarrhoea com¬ 
mences, and the secretion of milk is entirely suspended : in such 
cases the excitation of increased action in the intestines by a 
strong purgative, debilitated as she will be from improper food 
and mismanagement, as well as from a great flow of milk, must 
be evident to all. On these attacks it is the duty of the veteri¬ 
narian to forewarn his employer: although he may afford tem¬ 
porary relief by mild alterative doses of salts in combination with 
stimulants, yet the disease is not entirely subdued; for these are 
premonitory of more serious and fatal affections, under which 
the animal will eventually sink, unless they are in a great 
measure prevented by strict attention to comfort and good food 
on the part of the owner. Many cases of this sort have I wit¬ 
nessed, particularly in the short-horned breed, where the disease 
has been allowed to run its slow but sure and devastating course, 
without one single attempt on the part of the owner to arrest its 
progress; and they console themselves with the idea, that no 
benefit would have accrued by so doing, for she had milked 
herself to death.” In all cases of this sort, small is the credit 
attached to the science of the veterinarian, and not much better 
is the emolument; for let him display his knowledge to the 
utmost bounds of human reason, and by palliative measures 
ward off for a time the insidious blow of death, still will he fail 
in giving that satisfaction (and which is justly due to him) to his 
employer, which ought to be the motto and only aim of all vete¬ 
rinarians. The seeming difiiculty in swallowing, observed in the 
fourth case, is of common occurrence in the generality of cases, 
and exists in a greater or less degree, as the stomachs are more 
or less debilitated, and the consequent degree of nausea then 
existing. 
1 feel conscious, Mr. Editor, that I have entered upon a wide, 
untrodden, yet not unfruitful field, and which may excite doubts 
