Part 57

In the cold season protection against cold draughts and chills must be seen to, and in the hot season the avoidance of an excess of solar heat and above all of the confined impure air of the barns.

At midsummer and later, there is often great danger in the rich clover and alfalfa pasture, or soiling crop, with which the cow will dangerously load her stomach, and the only safe course is to remove predisposed animals and shut them up in a bare yard or box-stall. Under such simple precautions herds that had formerly suffered severely, have had the disease virtually put a stop to.

In individual cases other measures are indicated. When the udder has reached an enormous size and development, and is gorged with milk, days before parturition, it should be systematically milked. The irritation in the gorged gland is quite as likely to induce premature parturition, as is milking, and, at the worst, the result is not so bad as an attack of parturition fever.

Basing his advice on the fact that parturition fever does not follow a case of severe dystokia, Cagny applies sinapisms on the loins, croup and thighs of a fleshy, plethoric, heavy milking, parturient cow. Proof of their efficacy is not obtainable.

Félizet advises leaving the calf with its dam for one week. Kohne doses the cow with nux vomica: Harms, with tartar emetic.

In view of the probability of a bacterial infection the cow should be taken to a clean, pure, well-aired stable a day or two before calving, having been first cleansed from adherent filth, and sponged all over with a 4 per cent. solution of carbolic acid.

To prevent diffusion of infection Bournay recommends antiseptic injection of the womb immediately after calving. Bissauge adds that the stable should be disinfected after every case of parturition fever, the manure carefully removed and the ground scraped and well watered with a disinfectant.

For fleshy, plethoric, predisposed cows, the iodine injection of the udder should be applied immediately after calving. A measure of this kind which is so successful as a curative agent, and which brings such circumstantial evidence of the production of a poison (leucomaine or ptomaine) in the mammary gland, can hardly fail to be even more effective as a prophylactic than as a therapeutic resort.

Treatment. With the state of plethora and congestion about the head in the early stages the question of bleeding at once arises. If early enough while there is a full bounding pulse, and as yet no sign of great loss of muscular control it is often very beneficial, as much as 6 quarts or more being withdrawn. It is well however to avoid cording the neck, which must increase the vascular tension in the brain, and to trust rather to digital compression of the vein. The blood should be drawn from a large opening in a full free stream, and may be stopped when the pulse softens. In the more advanced condition, with paralysis and more or less dulling of the senses, or coma, bleeding may be dangerous rather than useful. There is then serious pressure on the brain, with serous effusion, and perhaps blood extravasation, and in any case anæmia, and this latter may be dangerously or even fatally increased by the lessening of the blood pressure, without any compensating advantage in the way of reabsorption of the effusion. In such cases eliminating agents are a safer resort.

Purgatives commend themselves, but with the drawback of a too tardy action. Now however with the peristaltic stimulants given hypodermically this objection is largely obviated. Pilocarpin 1½ gr., and eserine 3 grs. will often secure a noticeable movement of the bowels in the course of fifteen minutes, implying a corresponding motion onward in the bowels more anteriorly, and even of the contents of the gastric cavities. If there is already palsy of the muscles of deglutition, this may be repeated several times at intervals of four or five hours. If however deglutition is still well performed a purgative of one or two pounds Epsom salts, with 10 drops croton oil, and 1 oz. oil of turpentine may be given by the mouth. Should this operate, it will supplement and carry on even more effectively the work of the hypodermic agents, and even lessen the density, plasticity and tension of the blood and act as a potent derivative from the brain.

A compromise may be made by giving aloes 2 ozs., croton oil 20 drops in bolus; or 1 to 2 ozs. sulphate of soda in solution may be injected subcutem.

In any case oil of turpentine or other antiseptic is of great value in the stomach in preventing fermentation and tympany, and thereby obviating a whole series of troubles such as: cerebral disturbance by nervous shock and blood pressure; impaired respiration and hæmatosis by pressure on the diaphragm; and eructations of food to the pharynx and its inhalation or gravitation into the lungs.

It is always well to clear out the rectum by injections, when if there is any indication of pharyngeal paralysis most of the remedies may be given by this channel.

Stimulants (ammonia carbonate, alcohol, anise, fennel, ether, nux, etc.) have been largely employed by the mouth and may be by the rectum. In the absence of spasms I have relied largely on nux or strychnia.

When the skin chills, some have sought to heat it by enveloping the posterior half of the body in cotton or wool soaked in turpentine, by applying sinapisms, or by moving over the surface a warming-pan containing red hot charcoal.

More generally cold in the shape of cold water, ice or snow has been applied to the cranium and spine. Theoretically the anæmic brain might be thought to forbid this, but clinically it often operates well, possibly by inducing a sympathetic contraction of the vessels in and around the nerve centres and thus indirectly favoring the resumption of active circulation and the reabsorption of effusions.

An elevated position of the head is no less important. It favors the return of blood from the brain by gravitation, and in this way improves the intracranial circulation, and the resumption of normal function. A halter, or a rope around the horns, may be tied to a beam overhead, or the head may be laid on thick bundles of straw which will keep it up to or above the level of the chest, and in this way not only is gravitation ensured, but the brain is protected against the violent blows and concussions, which come from dashing the head on the ground.

Frequent rubbing of the udder and drawing of the milk, is an excellent means of depletion, a removal of a source of irritation, and presumably an extraction of part of the offending poison. It should never be neglected. But of all known methods of treatment the iodine injection furnishes the greatest hope of success.

Injection of the mammæ with Iodine. Iodide of potassium 100 grains (200 grs. in the case of a very large udder) are dissolved in a quart of water which has been boiled for 15 minutes, the solution cooled to 104° F. and injected in equal parts into the four quarters, which have been just milked out clean. The glands are then manipulated so as to work the solution into all the recesses of the milk tubes and follicles. If the patient does not get on its legs at the end of twelve hours, the glands may be milked out and injected anew. In nearly 2000 cases the recoveries reached an average of nearly 83 per cent. In serious or advanced cases with structural changes of a grave nature, a good result cannot be hoped for. The injection does not forbid the concurrent use of other approved measures.

The injection is easily made with a caoutchouc tube of five feet long fitted to a teat tube at one end and to a funnel at the other. The tube is inserted in the teat, and the funnel at a height of five feet receives the liquid, which readily passes into the teat. When ready to pass the tube from one teat to another, an assistant pinches the caoutchouc tube just below the funnel, until the insertion has been made. Every precaution must be taken against sepsis. The udder, teats and hands, must be washed with soap, and treated with a 3 per cent. solution of lysol. The teat tube and funnel are boiled. The caoutchouc tube is washed and irrigated with a solution of mercuric chloride (1:1000), and then with one of boric acid (3:100).

DISEASES OF THE EYE. DESIRABLE FEATURES IN THE EYE.

The eye in the physiognomy. Broad forehead. Full eyes. Both eyes alike. Iris smooth, lustrous. Media translucent. Pupil sensitive to light. Convexity median, uniform. Pupil black in ordinary light. Lids open and mobile. Sclera light pink. Tears clear, limpid without overflow. Lids thin, delicate, margins evenly curved. Whole eye responsive to moving objects. Defects: small eye: semi-closed, thick, sluggish lids; convex cornea: sunken eye: projecting eye: weeping eye: blear eye: watch eye: irresponsive iris: dilated pupil: unequal eyes: flat cornea; ovoid cornea.

Much of the expression of the face depends upon the eyes, and in animals as in man it is difficult to find compensations for a forbidding countenance. Perfect, sound, intelligent eyes are always pleasing; imperfect, defective, sunken or lifeless eyes mar the whole expression. The following points may be specially noted:

1st. =Ample breadth between the orbits.= This is of great importance in the horse, in which we seek for intelligence, courage and indomitable energy. This confirmation does not indicate the size of brain, as the cranium is situated higher up, but by placing the eyes well outward, it indicates a wider range of vision, and usually implies large, clear eyes, and since interdependent parts tend to correspond in development and quality, this commanding vision bespeaks a large, active brain, intelligence, docility and activity.

2d. =Full, prominent eyes.= This may be excessive, either through primary conformation or disease. Abnormal convexity of the cornea implies myopia. But within normal limits the prominent eye suggests good health, condition and vigor, with ample cushions of fat under the bulb and a sound, well-developed condition of the eyeball and its muscles.

3d. =Both eyes equal in all respects.= Any variation in size, shape, color, fullness, clearness or in any other respect is at best unsightly, and implies not only defect but often disease as well.

4th. =The iris should be lustrous, uniform in color and even in surface.= Whether dark brown as in the horse, or yellow as in the dog, it should be brilliant. Any part that lacks lustre, being lighter brown, or yellow and dull like a dead leaf, usually indicates previous disease and a tendency to further trouble. Albinos and those in which the pigment is congenitally absent in patches must be considered as exceptions, yet, even in them, the peculiarity cannot be held to add to the beauty.

5th. =All the Media (Cornea, aqueous humor, lens and vitreous) must be perfectly clear and translucent.= The slightest cloudiness or opacity in any of these is a serious blemish and usually indicates disease, past or present.