The American Reformed Cattle Doctor Part 28

Fir balsam, half a pint.

Sulphur, 1 ounce.

Mix. Anoint the sores daily.

The only additional treatment necessary in erysipelas is, to give a bountiful supply of tea made of lemon balm, sweetened with honey.

FOOTNOTE:

[17] More likely the remedies. They are tobacco and corrosive sublimate--destructive poisons.

DIARRHOEA.

This is not always to be considered as a disease, but in many cases it proves salutary operation of nature; therefore it should not be too suddenly checked.

We commence the treatment by feeding on boiled meal. We then give mucilaginous drink made from marshmallows, slippery elm, or poplar bark.

If, at the end of two days, symptoms of amendment have not made their appearance, the following draught must be given:--

Make a strong infusion of raspberry leaves, to a pint of which add a tea-spoonful of tincture of capsic.u.m, (hot drops,) and one of charcoal.

To be repeated every morning, until healthy action is established.

DYSENTERY.

This malady may be treated in the same manner as diarrhoea. Should blood and slime be voided in large quant.i.ties, the excrement emit a fetid odor, and the animal waste rapidly, then, in addition to the mucilaginous drink, administer the following:--

Powdered charcoal, 1 tea-spoonful.

" golden seal, half a tea-spoonful.

To be given, in hardhack tea, as occasion may require.

A small quant.i.ty of charcoal, given three times a day, with boiled food, will frequently cure the disease, alone.

Dysentery is sometimes mistaken for diarrhoea; but they may be distinguished by the following characteristics:--

1st. Diarrhoea most frequently attacks weak animals; whereas dysentery ofttimes attacks animals in good condition.

2d. Dysentery generally attacks sheep in the hot months; on the other hand, diarrhoea terminates at the commencement of the hot season.

3d. In diarrhoea, there are scarcely any feverish symptoms, and no straining before evacuation, as in dysentery.

4th. In diarrhoea, the excrement is loose, but in other respects natural, without any blood or slime; whereas in dysentery the faeces consist of hard lumps, blood, and slime.

5th. There is not that degree of fetor in the faeces, in diarrhoea, which takes place in dysentery.

6th. In dysentery, the appet.i.te is totally gone; in diarrhoea, it is generally better than usual.

7th. Diarrhoea is not contagious; dysentery is supposed to be highly so.

8th. In dysentery, the animal wastes rapidly; but by diarrhoea, only a temporary stop is put to thriving, after which it makes rapid advances to strength, vigor, and proportion.

CONSTIPATION, OR STRETCHES.

By these terms are implied a preternatural or morbid detention and hardening of the excrement; a disease to which all animals are subject, unless proper attention be paid to their management. It mostly arises from want of exercise, feeding on frosted oats, indigestible matter of every kind, impure water, &c. Costiveness is often the case of flatulent and spasmodic colic, and often of inflammation of the bowels.

Mr. Morrill says, "I have always found that the quant.i.ty of medicine necessary to act as an _opiate_ on this dry ma.s.s [alluding to that found in the manyplus and intestines] will kill the animal. If I am mistaken, I will take it kindly to be set right." You are quite right.

Let us see what Professor J. A. Gallup says, in his Inst.i.tutes of Medicine, vol. ii. p. 187. "The practice of giving opiates to mitigate pain, &c., is greatly to be deprecated; it is not only unjustifiable, but should be esteemed unpardonable. It is probable that, for forty years past, opium and its preparations have done _seven times the injury_ that they have rendered benefit"--killed seven where they have saved one! Page 298, he calls opium the "most destructive of all narcotics," and wishes he could "speak through a lengthened trumpet, that he might tingle the ears" of those who use and prescribe it. All the opiates used by the allopathists contain more or less of this poisonous drug. Opiates given with a view of softening ma.s.s alluded to will certainly disappoint those who administer them; for, under the use of such "palliatives," the digestive powers fail, and a general state of feebleness and inactivity ensues, which exhausts the vital energies.

It will be found in stretches, that other organs, as well as the "manyplus," are not performing their part in the business of physiological or healthy action, and they must be excited to perform their work; for example, if the food remains in either of the stomachs in the form of a hard ma.s.s, then the surface of the body is evaporating too much moisture from the general system; the skin should be better toned. Pure air is one of the best and most valuable of nature's tonics.

Let the flock have pure air to breathe, and sufficient room to use their limbs, with proper diet, and there will be little occasion for medicine.

_Treatment._--The disease is to be obviated by proper attention to diet, exercise, and ventilation; and when these fail, to have recourse to bitter laxatives, injections, and aperients. The use of salts and castor oil creates a necessity for their repet.i.tion, for they overwork the mucous surfaces, and their delicate vessels lose their natural sensibility, and become torpid. Scalded shorts are exceedingly valuable in this complaint, as also are boiled carrots, parsnips, &e.

The derangement must be treated according to its indications, thus:--

Suppose the digestive organs to be deranged, and rumination to have ceased; then take a tea-spoonful of extract of b.u.t.ternut, and dissolve it in a pint of thoroughwort tea, and give it at a dose. Use an injection of soap-suds, if necessary.

Suppose the excrement to be hard, coated with slime, and there be danger of inflammation in the mucous surfaces; then give a wine-gla.s.s of linseed oil,[18] to which add a raw egg.

It is scarcely ever necessary to repeat the dose, provided the animal is allowed a few scalded shorts.

If the liver is supposed to be inactive, give, daily, a tea-spoonful of golden seal in the food.

If the animal void worms with the faeces, then give a tea made from cedar boughs, or buds, to which add a small quant.i.ty of salt.

FOOTNOTE:

[18] Olive oil will answer the same purpose.

SCOURS.

In scours, the surface evaporates too little of the moisture, and should be relaxed by diffusible stimulants in the form of ginger tea. The treatment that we have found the most successful is as follows: take four ounces raw linseed oil, two ounces of lime water; mix. Let this quant.i.ty be given to a sheep on the first appearance of the above disease; half the quant.i.ty will suffice for a lamb. Give about a wine-gla.s.s full of ginger tea at intervals of four hours, or mix a small quant.i.ty of ginger in the food. Let the animal be fed on gruel, or mashes of ground meal. If the above treatment fails to arrest the disease, add half a tea-spoonful of powdered bayberry bark. If the extremities are cold, rub them with the tincture of capsic.u.m.