RED WATER. 
in illustration of human ignoranceand folly. Even 
the professional treatment of it on the Continent 
has a strong dash of the vague and the ridiculous. 
But the treatment recommended by all the best 
British veterinarians is intelligible and simple, 
and consists mainly in purgation, accompanied 
with the administration of subordinate remedies 
suited to the secondary or adventitious symptoms. 
Mr. Thomson’s prescription is one of the clearest, 
and is declared by Youatt to “ comprise the sub- 
stance of that treatment which is founded on 
principle, and will be attended by success where 
success can be attained,” and is stated in the 
following terms:—“ Purgatives of any kind, if 
given in large quantities of water, are found to 
be the best medicines that can be employed. 
Medicines given to cattle that have lost the 
power of chewing the cud, generally pass into 
the first aud second stomachs, and if a good 
draught of water is not given to wash. them 
from thence, if the animal dies the greater part 
of the medicines will be found in these stomachs; 
and upon this principle, common salt, if properly 
managed,.will be found among the best. Dissolve 
the quantity to be given in as much water as will 
enable it to pass freely from the bottle or drench- 
ing horn, and let the animal have plenty of water 
to drink afterwards. Should it refuse to drink, 
no time should be lost in drenching it profusely 
with water. Without a plentiful dilution, there 
is no certainty of purging cattle that have lost 
their cud. If purging does not commence in 
- from 12 to 24 hours, a second dose should be 
given. Injections of soap and water should also 
be tried if the case is obstinate, and when they 
operate, a pint of linseed oil should be given as a 
laxative. So obstinate is the constipation in 
some cases, that the salt acts only as a diuretic, | 
‘causing a plentiful discharge of urine. Diuretics 
and astringents combined seem only of service 
when the bowels are open, and their improper 
administration often causes inflammation of the 
bewels and kidneys. If, after purgation, the 
bowels are kept open by laxatives, such as linseed 
infusion, the -disease will gradually disappear 
without their use. In the last stage of the dis- 
ease, when the urine assumes a dark-brown or 
black colour, -no remedy seems to have any effi- 
cacy, the animal is sunk beyond recovery, the 
bowels lose their action, suppression of urine 
follows, the animal stretches itself out and dies, 
as if perfectly exhausted. It is the duty of the 
owner, then, to attend to the disease at its com- 
mencement, and pursue a determined course of 
practice. Whether the disorder be owing to ab- 
sorbed inspissated bile, diseased manyplies, or 
disease of the secerning glands, purgatives of any 
kind, profusely diluted with water, almost al- 
ways effect a cure.” Some good practitioners, 
especially when constipation and excitement 
have occurred before they can prescribe, begin 
with letting blood, and purge with a mixture of 
ee salt, flowers of sulphur, powdered ginger, 
33 
and carbonate of ammonia, and, after purgation 
is fairly established, administer mild stimulants 
or nourishing drinks. 
Red water, both in cattle and in sheep, is often 
popularly confounded, both in name and in symp- 
tom, with inflammation of the kidneys and in- 
flammation of the urethra or of the mucous mem- 
brane of the bladder. The urine discharged in 
these diseases is mixed with blood, but not so 
intimately as in redwater, and generally with 
more or less accompaniment of mucus. Inflam- 
mation of the bladder or of the kidneys may 
easily be distinguished by this difference in the 
bloodiness of the urine; and, like every other 
case of acute inward inflammation, must be at- 
tacked with copious bleeding and with purging, 
yet must either not at all or very cautiously be 
assailed with counter-irritation. 
INFLAMMATION. 
Red water in sheep is less precisely understood, 
as to either cause or nature, than red water in 
cattle; and it sometimes bears the name of resp, 
and sometimes that of water braxy. ‘Some 
persons,’ says Mr. Cleeve, in his Prize Essay on 
the Diseases of Sheep, “treat this complaint as 
inflammation of the kidney. It is extremely 
probable that, in all cases of red water, the in- 
flammation of the abdomen may extend to the 
region of the kidney, and thus some of the indi- 
cations that appear may lead the observer to 
suppose that the kidney is the primary part 
affected ; but my opinion, founded upon post- | 
mortem examination of the subject, is, that the 
inflammatory action has its origin in the peri- 
toneum, and, consequently, that change of diet 
and attention to the bowels are the first points 
to which the care of the shepherd should be 
directed. If this opinion is well founded, diure- 
tic medicines are not judicious. Feeding on tur- 
nips when covered with hoar-frost is supposed to 
occasion the complaint. Another, yet more pro- 
bable, cause may be folding sheep on wet soil 
during frosty nights. The progress of this dis- 
ease, aS indeed is the case with all acute inflam- 
mation, is very rapid ; so rapid as to occasion 
death in most instances before the existence of 
it is suspected. Where its progress allows of 
observation, the indications of it are costiveness 
of the bowels and great pain and distress; the 
animal appearing incapable either of rest or 
active motion from the violence of its sufferings. 
Its name is derived from an accumulation of 
bloody fluid in the abdomen. The remedy is, as 
I have already mentioned, copious bleeding, even 
until fainting takes place, and this followed by 
opening medicine: but it is so rarely the case 
that a cure can be expected, that, if the sure 
symptoms of it are perceived, the best way is to 
kill the sheep before they have obtained their 
height. Where I have succeeded in removing 
the inflammatory symptoms, I have immediately 
changed the food, and put the sheep on bran and 
oats, very liberally sprinkled with salt. I also 
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