ON THE HOOVE 
39 
relieve herself. Now, in the acute hoove the administration of a 
few ounces of ether, or ammonia, or aromatic water which the 
Professor extols, is not energetic enough in its action, neither is it 
always at hand ; in short, it is too characteristic of the French 
method of practice, and too vaporizable to be carried into effect. 
Should cattle by accident break, or be inadvertently turned into a 
piece of fresh or young vetches, or after-grass or clover, or lucerne 
while wet with dew, hoar-frosts, or showers, acute hoove would be 
the result in some of them. The rumen or first stomach would be 
rapidly inflated with gases of an heterogeneous character, requiring 
quick and prompt relief by either the flexible tube, or puncturing 
the stomach with a trocar, not the giving of a little ether or aro¬ 
matic water : it would be next to an impossibility for it to enter the 
stomach when the animal is ready to fall from flatus; at the best- 
of times it is difficult and uncertain to ensure the entrance of 
fluids into the rumen of cattle. I should say, with due deference 
to the Professor, that on a farmer going into his fields where cattle 
are depasturing, and perceiving one or two blown and ready to 
drop from inflation of the stomach, the speediest and best plan 
would be, to avert impending danger, at once to introduce his 
sheep’s foot knife into the paunch, and let loose the confined gas or 
air; if time can be spared, introduce the flexible tube or trocar. 
The flexible tube, or probang, is a safe instrument; it readily allows 
the air or gas to escape from its confinement when fairly introduced 
into the stomach. The Professor must certainly make a great 
error when he says it is a dangerous instrument; there is no 
danger in introducing it, if only common care is observed. The 
only danger in its use, is when a foreign body is lodged in or im¬ 
pacted in the gullet or throat; but when there is nothing in the 
oesophagus to obstruct its passage, any one ignorant of the structure 
of the parts can pass it on into the rumen. The French patho¬ 
logist is also adverse to the use of the trocar; but as Mr. Youatt 
justly remarks, he cannot divine for what reason the trocar with 
its canula is an useful instrument for puncturing the rumen of 
cattle. I may say that the conjoined use of the probang and 
trocar has been the means of saving thousands of head of cattle. 
There is also another method of relieving acute hoove in cattle : it 
is simple, but of real value—not in its component parts, but in its 
mechanical operation ; with ease to be procured at the farm, if no 
tube or trocar is at hand. Make three or four pellets of lard, salt, 
and flour, into a firm consistence about the size of an egg ; give 
them to the animal one after another quickly: it will frequently 
break through the floor of the oesophagean canal, and make an 
opening into the stomach, let loose the confined air, with sudden 
relief to the beast. The phantasms of the Gallic Professor may 
