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

Puerperal or Milk Fever.

—Calving is often attended with feverish excitement. The change of powerful action from the womb to the udder causes much constitutional disturbance and local inflammation. A cow is subject to nervousness in such circumstances, which sometimes extends to the whole system, and causes puerperal fever. This complaint is called dropping after calving, because it succeeds that process. The prominent symptom is a loss of power over the motion of the hind extremities, and inability to stand; sometimes loss of sensibility in these parts, so that a deep puncture with a pin, or other sharp instrument, is unfelt.

This disease is much to be dreaded by the farmer, on account of the high state of excitement and the local inflammation. Either from neglect or ignorance, the malady is not discovered until the manageable symptoms have passed, and extreme debility has appeared. The animal is often first seen lying down, unable to rise; prostration of strength and violent fever are brought on by inflammation of the womb. But soon a general inflammatory action succeeds, rapid and violent, with complete prostration of all the vital forces, bidding defiance to the best-selected remedies.

Cows in very high condition, and cattle removed from low keeping to high feeding, are the most liable to puerperal fever. It occurs most frequently during the hot weather of summer, and then it is most dangerous. When it occurs in winter, cows sometimes recover. In hot weather they usually die.

Milk fever may be induced by the hot drinks often given after calving. A young cow at her first calving is rarely attacked with it. Great milkers are most commonly subject to it; but all cows have generally more or less fever at calving. A little addition to it, by improper treatment or neglect, will prevent the secretion of milk; and thus the milk, being thrown back into the system, will increase the inflammation.

This disease sometimes shows itself in the short space of two or three hours after calving, but often not under two or three days. If four or five days have passed, the cow may generally be considered safe. The earliest symptoms of this disease are as follows:

The animal is restless, frequently shifting her position; occasionally pawing and heaving at the flanks. Muzzle hot and dry, the mouth open, and tongue out at one side; countenance wild; eyes staring. She moans often, and soon becomes very irritable. Delirium follows; she grates her teeth, foams at the mouth, tosses her head about, and frequently injures herself. From the first, the udder is hot, enlarged, and tender; and if this swelling is attended by a suspension of milk, the cause is clear. As the case is inflammatory, its treatment must be in accordance; and it is usually subdued without much difficulty. Mr. Youatt says, “The animal should be bled, and the quantity regulated by the impression made upon the circulation,—from six to ten quarts often before the desired effect is produced.” He wrote at a time when bleeding was adopted as the universal cure, and before the general reasoning and treatment of diseases of the human system was applied to similar diseases of animals. The cases are very rare, indeed, where the physician of the present day finds it necessary to bleed in diseases of the human subject; and they are equally rare, I apprehend, where it is really necessary or judicious to bleed for the diseases of animals. A more humane and equally effectual course will be the following:

A pound to one and a half pounds of Epsom or Glauber’s salts, according to the size and condition of the animal, should be given, dissolved in a quart of boiling water; and, when dissolved, add pulv. red pepper a quarter of an ounce, caraway do. do., ginger do. do.; mix, and add a gill of molasses, and give lukewarm. If this medicine does not act on the bowels, the quantity of ginger, capsicum, and caraway, must be doubled. The insensible stomach must be roused. When purging in an early stage is begun, the fever will more readily subside. After the operation of the medicine, sedatives may be given, if necessary.

The digestive function first fails, when the secondary or low state of fever comes on. The food undischarged ferments; the stomach and intestines are inflated with gas, and swell rapidly. The nervous system is also attacked, and the poor beast staggers. The hind extremities show the weakness; the cow falls, and cannot rise; her head is turned on one side, where it rests; her limbs are palsied. The treatment in this stage must depend on the existence and degree of fever. The pulse will be the only true guide. If it is weak, wavering, and irregular, we must avoid depleting, purgative agents. The blood flows through the arteries, impelled by the action of the heart, and its pulsations can be very distinctly felt by pressing the finger upon almost any of these arteries that is not too thickly covered by fat or the cellular tissues of the skin, especially where it can be pressed upon some hard or bony substance beneath it. The most convenient place is directly at the back part of the lower jaw, where a large artery passes over the edge of the jawbone to ramify on the face. The natural pulse of a full-grown ox will vary from about forty-eight to fifty-five beats a minute; that of a cow is rather quicker, especially near the time of calving; and that of a calf is quicker than that of a cow. But a very much quicker rate than that indicated will show a feverish state, or inflammation; and a much slower pulsation indicates debility of some kind.

Next in importance, as we have already stated, is the physic. The bowels must be opened, or the animal will fall a victim to the disease. All medicines should be of an active character, and in sufficient quantity; and stimulants should always be added to the purgative medicines, to insure their operation. Ginger, gentian, caraway, or red pepper in powder, may be given with each dose of physic. Some give a powerful purgative, by means of Epsom salts one pound, flour of sulphur four ounces, powdered ginger a quarter of an ounce, all dissolved in a quart of cold water, and one half given twice a day till the bowels are opened. The digestive organs are deranged in most forms of milk fever, and the third stomach is loaded with hard, indigestible food. When the medicine has operated, and the fever is subdued, little is required but good nursing to restore the patient.

No powerful medicines should be used without discretion; for in the milder forms of the disease, as the simple palsy of the hind extremities, the treatment, though of a similar character, should be less powerful, and every effort should be made for the comfort of the cow, by providing a thick bed of straw, and raising the fore quarters to assist the efforts of nature, while all filth should be promptly and carefully removed. She may be covered with a warm cloth, and warm gruel should be frequently offered to her, and light mashes. An attempt should be made several times a day to bring milk from the teats. The return of milk is an indication of speedy recovery.

Milch cows in too high condition appear to have a constitutional tendency to this complaint, and one attack of it predisposes them to another.