Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Diarrhœa

is brought on by too sudden change of food, especially from dry to green and succulent food; sometimes by poisonous plants or bad water. If slight, the farmer may not be anxious to check it. It may show simply an effort of nature to throw off some injurious substances from the body, and so it may exist when the animal is quite healthy. But, if it continues too long, and is likely to debilitate the system, a mild purgative may be given to assist rather than check the operation of nature. Half a pound of Epsom salts, with a little ginger and gentian, will do for a medium-sized animal in this case; but a purgative may be followed in a day or two by an astringent medicine. Take prepared chalk two ounces, powdered oak-bark one ounce, powdered catechu two drachms, powdered opium one drachm, and four drachms powdered ginger. Mix these together, and give in a quart of warm gruel. Sometimes a few ounces of pulverized charcoal will arrest the diarrhœa. Common diarrhœa may be distinguished from dysentery by a too abundant discharge of dung in too fluid a form, or in a full, almost liquid stream, sometimes very offensive to the smell, and now and then bloody. In dysentery, the dung is often mixed with mucus and blood, and is not unfrequently attended by a hard straining. The quantity of dung is less than in diarrhœa, but more offensive.

Diarrhœa may occur at any season of the year, and sometimes leads to dysentery, which more frequently appears in the spring and fall.