corresponding changes in the skin generally, will take place at frequent intervals during the progress of many diseases.

Having thus arrived at the general morbid condition betokened by the coldness or heat of the horns, it remains to note other specific symptoms which will denote the precise nature of the disease. But these symptoms are as varied as the febrile and inflammatory disorders of the animal, so that it were vain to attempt to enumerate them here. And yet it is upon the observation and recognition of these specific symptoms alone that a rational treatment can be based. To note a few, by way of illustration, in themselves generic and pointing to disease of special organs rather than to particular diseases, I mention the following: There may be dullness, stupor, or somnolence, or extreme excitability, restlessness, or wildness of look. There may be slight twitching of the muscles. There may be cramps or convulsions, or more or less complete loss of sensation or voluntary movement, all pointing to diseases of the brain or nervous centers. There may be disturbed breathing, red injected nostrils, hot expired air, swelling of the throat, dryness of the nose or watery discharge from it, cough, grunting with each expiration or when some particular part of the chest is struck, together with modifications of the natural sounds and resonance of the chest, pointing to disease of the respiratory organs. There may be an absence of these symptoms, but a suspension of rumination, impaired appetite, swelling on the left side of the belly, uneasy movements of the hind limbs and tail, and an unnatural state of the dung as regards liquidity or dryness, frequency of escape or infrequency, or a chopped up, undigested appearance, all indicating some disorder of the digestive organs. The epizootic of Taffts was probably a digestive disorder, with symptomatic brain disease, as manifested in the stiffness and loss of control over the limbs, the great dullness, and the violent movements of the head. Color is lent to this supposition by the facts that the year 1771 was unusually wet and stormy, and marked by the prevalence of many diseases among men and animals in different parts of the world. Thus, ergotism was general throughout Europe. In Germany bilious fever was very fatal in man, an abdominal disorder in the horse, and large numbers of geese, pheasants and wild animals died. In Holland, Belgium and France an epizootic of gangrenous sore throat devastated the cattle. In Spain they suffered from a fatal dysentery. In Russia, from the cattle plague, and in the West Indian islands man and beast alike suffered from a malignant blood disease. The deteriorated fodder of such a year was very likely, indeed, to induce disor

ders of the digestive organs and of the brain. To return to the general symptoms. There may be yellowness of the eyes and nose, lying on the right side, grunting when struck on the last ribs on that side, and perhaps lameness in the right fore leg in an overfed and inactive animal, bespeaking disease of the liver. There may be arching and tenderness of the loins, an unsteady or straddling gait with the hind extremities, uneasy movements of the hind limbs and tail, frequent attempts to urinate, the passage of water in small quantities, high colored, or even bloody, showing disease of the urinary organs. I might proceed, but I will only seek to advise a treatment to be adopted during the shivering and the coldness of the horn, that will be at once more rational and more successful than the boring and peppering process.

If the animal is chill, shivering, or has a rough, staring coat, and if the horn is unnaturally cold, a dangerous inflammation may often be warded off by bringing about a free circulation and warmth in the skin. Give an injection of three quarts of warm water, repeating it if it is thrown off. Administer by the mouth several quarts of warm gruel, containing six or eight ounces of whiskey, brandy or gin, or if obtainable, four ounces of sweet spirits of nitre, or five drachms of carbonate of ammonia. Blanket the patient warmly from head to tail, and actively hand-rub the limbs. A good plan is to heat dry bran, salt or sand in a stove, put it in a broad, lengthy bag, and lay it along the beast's spine from shoulder to rump. Or wring a thick rug out of very hot water, lay it over the animal's back from head to tail, cover it up with several dry rugs or buffalo skins, and bind them closely to the skin with surcingles, that the heat may be retained. The limbs may, meanwhile, be actively rubbed, and then tied up in warm flannel bandages, loosely applied, so as not to impede the circulation. In half an hour the patient will usually be in a glow of warmth, and covered with perspiration, and the coverings must be removed gradually, one by one, and the damp one quickly replaced by an ample dry one, after one and a half to two hours Dangerous inflammations in the chest, abdomen, &c., may often be warded off by these measures, when taken in the initial stage, and though a little more troublesome than the gimlet surgery, it has the compensating claims of being at once rational and successful. Such measures are, of course, only applicable at the commencement of the disease, when, as yet, no important change of structure has taken place, but when there is an impaired vitality of some internal organ, and when the blood is being repelled from the surface to accumulate injuriously or [AG.]

6

fatally around this and other deep seated structures The same success must not be looked for from such measures applied during the slight and frequently alternating chills and flushes of the surface, which so often manifest themselves during the course of a severe inflammation, or after the diseased organ has become the seat of important structural changes. When the first chill or shiver has passed off, and when inflammation of an important organ has been fully established, other remedies must be employed, in the shape of counter-irritants and medicinal agents, as varied as the diseases, or even as the different types, phases or stages in individual cases of illness. To treat of these would acquire a volume, rather than a short address.

Tail-ail is closely allied to horn-ail in attacking the stock of ignorant and credulous owners, and in the measures to be adopted for its cure. Like that disease, it is further the peculiar prerogative of horned cattle. The caudal appendages of horses, dogs, pigs, and even of sheep are exempt from this formidable malady. It is not, however confined to the New World, but lays claim to all the respect with which the hoary antiquity of European prejudices and practice may invest it. It would appear as if, the world over, the useful cow is doomed to have her tail slit, and the sore rubbed with salt, soot, pepper, &c. The supposed softening of the end of the tail is due to a piece of pliable gristle by which the bones are prolonged, and if, in some weak states of the system, it may be further a little puffy and dropsical, this is due to the state of the body, and is not likely to be improved by the ruthless mutilation of this useful and ornamental appendage. It is true that the tail may slough off from dry gangrene in cattle feeding on ergoted grasses, or from moist gangrene after inoculation for pleuro-pneumonia; it may drop off gangrenous in young pigs with a weak circulation, or it may suffer from mechanical injuries of various kinds; but these conditions are all patent enough to the external senses, and do not require a wayward imagination to recognize them.

The destructive black tooth, like horn-ail, is a disorder exclusively American, and its existence as a fatal disease rests on about equal authority. A pig is ill of indigestion, deranged biliary or urinary secretion, or other malady inappreciable by those about him, and forthwith, at the expense of much muscular effort and hog music, his mouth must be torn open by a couple of nooses placed on the respective jaws, and one or more blackened teeth being discovered, they are hammered off level with the jaw. The hog sometimes

recovers, as he would probably have done had he been let alone, and as he would much more certainly and speedily, in the majority of cases, had he had a good soapy wash and three or four ounces of castor oil. But, seriously, if a tooth dyed by the imbibition of coloring agents, but otherwise sound, can be conceived of as injurious to the hog, how much more hurtful the broken and decaying stumps left as permanent irritants in the gums? If a tooth must be got quit of let it be extracted entire, otherwise much harm may result, but certainly no good.

But to leave these imaginary diseases, I shall glance at a few of the real ones that attack our farm stock, and offer some suggestions as to their prevention and treatment.

In the case of the horse, it is notorious how many of his diseases are connected with errors in diet. Colics, blind staggers, founder, excessive secretion of urine and heaves are especially deserving of mention in this connection. Colics arise mainly from over feeding, irregularities in feeding and watering, or from putting to work too soon after having swallowed a meal. Unsuitable food, such as that which is too watery, food that is still partially green, fermentescible and irritating, as in the case of newly harvested hay or grain, or food which tends to clog the digestive organs, like wheat and fine wheaten flour, are also common causes. A horse crouching, kicking at his belly, rolling and casting agonized glances at his flanks, in an attack of colic, may often be relieved by frequent injections of three or four quarts of warm water. This measure is especially applicable to the horse because of the extraordinary development of his large or terminal guts, in which obstructions and irritations are usually seated, and which may be, to a great extent, unloaded by the direct solvent action of the injection, as well as by the contraction of the anterior portion sympathetically with the more posterior and terminal part. To those who are in the habit of employing injections in diseases of the digestive organs in the horse, nothing need be said in their favor; but for those who are not, a statement of the capacity of the intestines and the nature of their contents, may not be superfluous. The large or terminal intestines. of the horse, then, are capable of holding from twenty-eight to thirty gallons, or within a fraction of two-thirds of the entire intestinal contents in the animal. Add to this that the contents of the anterior or small bowels are invariably semi-fluid, while those of the large intestines become increasingly firm and dry, and we find a reason not only for the greater prevalence of disease in the latter, but

also for the highly beneficial effects of copious injections. These remedial measures, moreover, inay be applied by any person, and in all kinds of maladies, without risk of injury. The only precautions are to avoid using the water at an unpleasant heat, to oil the nozzle of the injecting instrument and to introduce it with a requisite degree of caution. The common barrel syringe, holding about a quart, is an excellent instrument for the purpose, though, perhaps, a still better may be made from block tin, in the shape of a funnel, eight inches high, communicating below with a tube joining it at right angles, projecting six inches and rounded at its fore end, after the manner of the nozzle of the syringe. This has the advantage that it draws off any gas which may have lodged in the last gut, while the barrel syringe is very liable to introduce air.

But colics are not always to be overcome by simple injections. In bad cases two or three ounces of sweet spirits of nitre and twenty drops of tincture of aconite may be given in a few ounces of water. If a repetition of this dose does not relieve the patient in the course of one and a half hours, a laxative, consisting of five drachms of aloes should be at once given, to rid the bowels of their irritating contents. The nauseating and anti-spasmodic action of this agent will often relieve suffering within half an hour, and nearly always within four hours after it has been given, though the dung is not seen to be materially affected until next day. But I would add a caution as to the form in which the aloes are given. If given in the form of liquid as a drink, a half and upward is usually lost, a fact which accounts for the absence of all effect after a quarter or half a pound of aloes are supposed to have been administered. The powdered aloes, mixed with a drachm of ginger, and, if it is at hand, two drachms of extract of hyoscyamus should be made up into a bolus, in the form of a cylinder, about two and a half inches long and not more than three-fourths of an inch in diameter, rolled in thin paper, and the tongue having been seized with the left hand and turned up between the jaws so as to compel gaping, the bolus held in the right is carried over the tongue and lodged just over its root, in the median line. The tongue is immediately released, and the bolus is inevitably swallowed.

Blind-staggers, so prevalent in some parts of the States, and, to some extent, in New York, results directly from partial or complete paralysis of the stomach, whether as the result of overloading or of some agent which directly impairs nervous function. The orain disease is a secondary or sympathetic affection, and hence, if we attack