So  — 
BLACKMUZZLE. 
cleared from wool, well cleansed with soapy water, 
and dressed with basilicon rendered caustic by 
the addition of a little red precipitate, or with 
any similar caustic ointment; or the sores may 
be thinly powdered with a little pulverized burnt 
alum, and the whole limb wrapped in a cloth 
thinly spread with the scab ointment.—When 
the disease attacks the neck, it causes the sheep 
to carry the neck awry; and it may be treated 
in a similar manner as when it attacks the legs. 
—The name black-leg is also one of several pro- 
vincial designations given to inflammatory fever 
in the cow. See the articles Frver and Inriam- 
MATION. 
BLACKMUZZLE. A disease in the face of 
sheep. It isan erysipelatic eruption on the nose, 
and sometimes extends up the face. It resembles 
scab in outward appearance, but does not arise 
from the same cause, and is not contagious. In 
lambs, it has been ascribed to cutaneous affection 
in the teats or udder of the dam; but it is nei- 
ther peculiar to lambs, nor of common occurrence 
at any age; yet as it is always limited to the 
face, and generally spreads from the nose, it pro- 
bably arises from some cause connected with 
feeding. A mild mercurial ointment, holding in 
combination some resin and some Venice turpen- 
tine, will easily cure this disease. 
BLACK OATS. See Oats. 
BLACK PALMER. See Turnip-Fty. 
BLACKTHORN, or Stoz-Tres,—botanically 
Prunus spinosa. A large, rigid, spiny bush, bear- 
ing rosaceous flowers, and drupaceous plum-like 
fruit. It is a common indigenous plant through- 
out Great Britain, frequently growing in hedges, 
thickets, banks of streams, and road-side wastes, 
and generally known for its small, beautiful, 
austere drupes. It is quite equal in beauty to 
some of our highly esteemed ornamental shrubs; 
but is prevented, by its commonness, from being 
introduced to shrubberies, or even noticed as 
handsome. It usually grows to the height of 
about 15 feet; and it blooms in March and April, 
and matures its fruit toward the end of autumn. 
It has been frequently used for making quickset 
hedges; but, in consequence of its greater lia- 
bility to fail, of its running more into the ground, 
of its greater tendency to expend its power in 
throwing up suckers, it is not so suitable for this 
purpose as the common hawthorn. Yet it serves 
much better, asa cut plant, for dead hedges or for 
filling gaps, both because it keeps longer fresh, and 
because it offers a firmer resistance to cattle. It 
has been regarded by some botanists as holding 
the same relation to all the varieties of the garden 
plum which the crab-tree holds to most of the 
cultivated varieties of the apple; but it is ob- 
viously an altogether distinct species from both 
the plum and the bullace. Its small glossy black 
drupes are greedily sought after by the children 
of the peasantry in many districts; but they are 
too intensely acidulous, and too astringent and 
austere, to be eatable by almost any adults, ex- 
BLADDER. 439 
cept when cooked with a very large proportion 
of sugar. The juice of the fruit is said to be 
commonly employed in adulterating port-wine, 
or in making artificial imitations of it ; and when 
inspissated over a slow fire, it serves as a substi- 
tute for catechu, and operates beneficially in 
checking such dysenteries as are not accompanied 
by inflammation. The dried leaves are said to 
be, in many instances, mixed up more or less 
with the tea of the shops. 
BLACKWATER. A disease in sheep and in 
black cattle. Blackwater in sheep is supposed to 
be caused by rank pasturage, and is indicated by 
the discharge of a black and sometimes bloody 
serum from the kidneys; and when it proves 
fatal, a serum of the same kind is found in the 
stomach. The proper treatment for it is the ad- 
ministration of tonics and gentle aperients,—the 
tonics consisting of bark or steel, or of vitriolic 
acid in infusion of bark.— Blackwater in black 
cattle, and sometimes in sheep, is simply the con- 
cluding stage of the disease called redwater; and 
it cannot be made to yield to any known remedy, 
but ought to be prevented by a prompt and skil- 
ful treatment of the precurrent symptoms. “In 
the last stage of redwater,” remarks Mr. Thom- 
son, “ 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 fol- 
lows, the animal stretches itself out and dies, as 
if perfectly exhausted. It is the duty of the 
owner, therefore, to attend to this disease at its 
commencement, and pursue a determined course 
of practice.” See the article RepwaATER. 
BLADDER. The musculo-membranous bag 
in red-blooded animals, which serves as a tem- 
porary reservoir of the urine. It receives the 
urine, by constant droppings, through the ureters 
from the kidneys; and discharges it, by occa- 
sional evacuations, through the urethra. In 
quadrupeds, it has a pyriform shape, and is 
wholly surrounded with the serous lining of the 
abdomen ; and, in general, it is smaller, stronger, 
and more muscular, in carnivorous than in gram- 
inivorous genera. In the male human subject, it 
is situated in the basin of the abdomen, imme- 
diately before the lower extremity of the intes. 
tines; in the female human subject, it is separ- 
ated from the lower extremity of the intestines 
by the uterus; and in different individuals of 
both sexes and of various ages, it is much modi- 
fied in both form and size, by the advance of age, 
by habits of living, and by the particular exer- 
cise of its own functions. In a general view, it 
changes from a pyriform shape in the infant to a 
short oval shape in the adult, lies lower in the 
basin of the abdomen in middle life than in youth, 
and in old age than in middle life, increases in 
capacity as life advances, is larger and has a 
greater transverse diameter in the female than 
in the male, is reducible by constant irritation 
to a habit of irretentiveness, and expansible by 
