74 
QUESTIONABLE DISEASE IN A COW. 
and the cow apparently relieved. However, in a short time it 
became evident the cow was again getting worse. The swelling 
in the neck was making rapid strides downwards—the breathing 
becoming much more difficult—ears and horns deathy cold—the 
abdomen more tympanitic, and that to such an extent that it ap¬ 
peared quite evident it was the precursor of speedy dissolution. 
At this juncture I proposed using the trocar, repeating the chloride 
&c.; but upon the whole (she being a valuable fat beast, equal to 
14 stone per quarter, of 14 lbs. to the stone) I did not press these 
remedies, and candidly told the owner that the only means I saw 
he had to profit by was to have her slaughtered. This statement I 
strenuously advocated, and, the case being urgent, he immediately 
complied. 
At the time I ought to have had an opportunity to make an ex¬ 
amination I was called to attend another patient, so that I can give 
you little satisfactory post-mortem account; nothing, in fact, further 
than that detailed to me by the butcher,—i. e., all the swollen parts 
when cut into exuded a thin watery fluid; the windpipe throughout 
was inflamed; likewise the lungs, with here and there dark patches 
upon their surface; and, as he thought, the heart was enlarged, 
and in places discoloured; the spleen smaller than usual. The 
other parts, he considered, appeared healthy. 
My plea for forwarding you the case is this:—In some abstracts 
taken from The Veterinary Record for 1847, sent me by a friend, 
I find there is a paper by Mr. Wright, V.S., of Burnham Overy, 
giving an account of a disease among horses, and which he terms 
“ Malignant Sore Throat,” the cattle also being similarly affected, 
but in them he terms it “ Inflammatory Fever*,” with which, how¬ 
ever, he appears not to be acquainted. After perusing that paper, 
it struck me, my case might be something of the same type, though 
there were in each case symptoms dissimilar. Yet, like Mr. 
Wright, I am free to confess it was a case quite new to me, since 
through a lengthened course of practice I never met with any 
complaint shewing similar symptoms. Now, if it be, as termed, a 
“malignant” complaint, then I am far from being justified in ad¬ 
vising her carcass to be dressed; but in this let ignorance plead 
my excuse. And though a north country practitioner, yet, per¬ 
haps, some of your more talented correspondents will condescend to 
review this paper, and put the case in a clearer light. 
* I prefer the term, in this case, of “ malignant ” to “ inflammatory,” though 
there was inflammation, and that with a vengeance. 
