NATURE, TREATMENT, AND CAUSES OF DISEASE IN CATTLE.
The pathology, or doctrine of diseases, is, as we have previously stated, little understood. Many different causes have been assigned for disease, and as many different modes of cure have been advocated. We shall not discuss either the ancient or modern doctrines any further than we conceive they interfere with correct principles. In doing so, we shall endeavor to confine ourselves to truth, reason, and nature.
We entirely discard the popular doctrine that fever and inflammation are disease. We look upon them as simple acts of the constitution—sanative in their nature. Then the reader may ask, "Why do you recommend medicine for them?" We do not. We only prescribe medicine, for the purpose of aiding nature to cure the diseases of which they (the fever and inflammation) are symptoms, and we do not expect to accomplish even that by medicine alone. Ventilation, diet, and exercise, in nine cases out of ten, will do more good than the destructive agents that have hitherto been used, and christened "cattle medicines."
The great secret of curing diseases is, by accurately observing the indications of nature to carry off and cure disease, and by observing by what critical evacuations she does at last cast off the morbid matter which caused them, and so restores health. By thus observing, following, and assisting nature, agreeably to her indications, our practice will always be more satisfactory.
Whenever the great outlets (skin, lungs, and kidneys) of the animal body are obstructed, morbific and excrementitious substances are retained in the system; they irritate, stimulate, and offend nature in such a manner, that she always exerts her power to throw them off. And she acts with great regularity in her endeavors to expel the offending matter, and thus restore the animal to a healthy state.
Suppose an animal to be attacked with disease, and fever supervenes; the whole system is then aroused to cast out this disease: nature invariably points to certain outlets, as the only passages through which the enemy must evacuate the system; and it is the province of the physician to aid in this wise and well-established effort; but when such means are resorted to as in the case of the cow at Waltham, (p. 98,) instead of rendering nature the necessary assistance, her powers and energies are entirely crushed.
Let us suppose a horse to have been exercised; during that exercise, there is a determination of heat and fluids to the surface: the pores of the skin expand and permit the fluids to make their exit: now, if the horse is put into a cold stable, evaporation commences, leaving the surface cold and the pores constricted, so that, after the circulating system has rested a while, it commences a strong action again, to throw off the remaining fluids that were thus suddenly arrested; there is no chance for their escape, as the pores are closed; the skin then becomes dry and harsh, the "coat stares," and the animal has, in common parlance, taken cold, and "it has thrown him into a fever." Now, the cold is the real enemy to be overcome, and the fever should be aided by warmth, moisture, friction, and diffusables. If, at this stage, the cold is removed, the fever will disappear; but if the disease (the cold) has been allowed to advance until a general derangement or sympathetic action is set up, and there is an accumulation of morbific matter in the system, then the restorative process must be more powerful and energetic; constantly bearing in mind that we must assist nature in her endeavors to throw off whatever is the cause of her infirmities. Instead of attacking the disease with the lancet and poison,—which is on the principle of killing the horse to cure the fever,—we should use remedies that are favorable to life. It matters not what organs are affected; the means and processes are the same, and therefore the division of inflammation and fever into a great number of parts designated by as many names, and indicated by twenty times as many complications of symptoms which may never be present, only serve to bewilder the practitioner, and render his practice ineffectual.