634 
REMARKS ON FIRING, &c. 
plentifully with bran mashes with oats in them. At two o’clock the 
servant found her down, and then called me. I saw her in five 
minutes afterwards. On inquiring, the servant told me that he 
did not recollect that he had seen her chew her cud the day be¬ 
fore, but would not have thought of it if I had not asked him. I 
bled her largely, and gave her two pounds of linseed oil, fifty drops 
of croton oil, and ginger one ounce; and blistered the back. 
At six o’clock I repeated the linseed oil and ginger. 
She appeared to be doing remarkably well up to one o’clock 
on the following day; in the morning of which I had given one 
pound of Epsom salts, and half an ounce of ginger. At two 
o’clock, twenty-four hours after I had first seen her, I was called 
in a great hurry : I went at once, and found the abdomen im¬ 
mensely distended, and the cow nearly dead, as I thought. I 
plunged my knife into the flank, thinking to let out the gas, but 
scarcely any escaped. I enlarged the opening, and some old rope 
first made its appearance. The surgeon who attended the family 
being present, I represented the case to him, and told him that 
I imagined it was a hopeless one, but that I wished to do 
all that I could. I enlarged the opening so as to get my arm in, 
and removed more than two bushels of such a mass as I should 
only expected to have found in the stomach of a rabid animal, con¬ 
sisting of old rope, tow, sticks, leather, twine, dock-leaves, &c.; 
indeed, it seemed as though she had been collecting all the filth 
of the back yard. 
Having taken out all I could, I poured a pailful of warm 
water into the rumen, with some oatmeal flour, not forgetting 
another dose of oil; I also first sewed the stomach up and then 
the flank. Three hours afterwards she appeared much better, 
and lifted her head up, but she died that night about ten o’clock. 
She appeared much relieved before I had taken half what I 
did away; but although it turned out at last of no service, yet, as 
the case w’as otherwise a hopeless one, I consider that I was jus¬ 
tified in doing as I did. If any brother Vet has met with a simi¬ 
lar case, I hope he will not think it too much trouble to send it to 
you for publication : it may lead to something in that particular 
disease that has not met the attention of the profession generally. 
Red-water does not occur very frequently in this neighbour¬ 
hood, and the farmers are in the habit, generally, when it does 
occur, of treating it by drenching the bullock with about a gallon 
of a strong decoction of nettles in which half a pound of common 
salt is dissolved; and I believe they invariably cure it by that 
means, not having heard of a fatal case since I have lived here, 
and that being more than six years. I, like yourself, believe it 
to be a disease of tiie digestive organs. 
