3d. Transitions from heat to cold.
4th. Weakness and relaxation of the bowels.
(134.) Treatment of Diarrhœa. When either of the first two causes has given rise to purging, a moderate allowance of good hay will gradually stop it. This may be discontinued when the sheep has taken with its altered fare.
When diarrhœa has been occasioned by exposure to damp, or sudden transitions from heat to cold, it may be arrested by keeping the animal in a house for a few days, and feeding it on any dry aliment, but when crude trashy matter has been swallowed, and keeps up irritation by its presence, medicine must be resorted to. Administer an ounce of castor oil in gruel, adding twenty drops of Laudanum if there has been straining or evidences of pain. When the bowels have been thoroughly cleared by this cathartic, it will be proper, if the discharge still continue, to check it by astringents. The medicine found by experience to answer best, is prepared as follows:—
| Take of | Logwood four ounces, |
| Extract of Catechu (Japan earth) one drachm, | |
| Cinnamon two drachms, | |
| Water three English pints. |
Boil for a quarter of an hour, strain, and then add sixty drops of Laudanum. Administer half an English pint of this night and morning so long as the flux continues.
Diarrhœa seldom proves fatal, and is indeed an easily managed disease; but as it is frequently only a symptom of some other affection, or a critical effort of the constitution to ward off some more serious mischief, the attempts at stopping it should always be cautiously conducted.
(135.) Dysentery.—Symptoms. The pulse is quick and the respirations hurried. The skin is harsh and hot, and the wool in general clapped. The mouth is dry, the eyes red and languid, and the ears drooping. Food is taken only in small quantities and rumination is stopped. The discharges from the bowels are frequent, slimy, sometimes green, and a little further on in the disease are mixed with blood. The belly is drawn towards the back. It is knotted and lumpy to the touch and a rumbling noise (borborygmus) is heard within it. As a careless observer might have some difficulty in distinguishing dysentery from diarrhœa the following diagnostic summary, drawn up by Professor Duncan, will be found of service.
1. Diarrhœa attacks chiefly hogs and weak gimmers and dinmonts; whereas dysentery is frequent among older sheep.
2. Diarrhœa almost always occurs in the spring, and ceases about June, when dysentery only commences.