106

OK THE LIVE STOCK

medicines, and strong injections of common gruels, Epsomsalts, tincture of senna, and olive oil *. “ The blister that

forms at the root of the tongue in full grown cattle is care-fully taken away with a piece of cloth by the hand, remo-ving the yellowish fluid it contains, which, if swallowed, isconsidered very dangerous f. A putrid distemper in thethroat, called the clyers or gargle, is hardly ever cured. Itis treated by bleeding, evacuations, and bark in milk, andsome think this disease hereditary J.

Much loss is often sustained from causes which cannotwell be enumerated among the distempers of cattle. Theprincipal ones are abortion, and sore udders and teats, incows; and lioving or bursting, and choking, in all sorts ofcattle.

Abortion, or casting calf, proceeds generally from disagree-able smells,—often from hay that has been much heated,and is in a corrupted state, and from other unwholesomefood. "When one cow casts calf, there is much danger thatall the others in the same cow-house will do so also, unlessshe is speedily removed, and her stall well cleaned out; andeven with every precaution, it is scarcely possible to savethem from the infection, unless they are but a short timegone with calf. The udders of milch cows, both when givingmilk, and afterwards when put to fatten, sometimes becomehard and swelled, and even suppurate. This disorder pro-ceeds chiefly from careless milking, and lying on dampground after having been long kept in a cow-house. Some-times, though the cows are dry, when put on feeding pasture orturnips, the milk returns and produces much inconvenience.Before the udder has come to suppuration, bathing it withwarm w ater, rubbing i.t gently, anointing it with camphor, andcovering it with flannel, may be of advantage ; but after sup-puration, the matter must be discharged, and the wound kept

#

f

Farmer’s Magazine, vol. iii, p. 445.Dumfrfes-shire Report, p. 357.

$ Ibid.