In bandaging the legs, endeavor to get an equal pressure at all points. A long roll is, therefore, best, and several layers should be wrapped around the member. It is a good plan to remove the bandage, replacing with another at least once a day, and two a day are better. When a bandage is removed, the skin should be washed and rubbed with the hand and fingers, and the covering replaced as promptly as possible.
Food and Drink.
—During sickness only easily digestible food should be provided. Offer something different from the ordinary, and let it be prepared in an appetizing form. Nothing is better than gruels and mashes. These are soft, nourishing, appetizing, and easily digested. When active nutrition is demanded, milk and eggs can be added to the ordinary gruels or mashes.
Water should be available at all times. Small amounts at frequent intervals are better than large amounts at intervals far apart. In a few instances only is it best to withhold the water. In treating dysentery, diarrhœa and diabetes water is usually withheld, but in most diseases a free use is allowable and desirable.
CHAPTER X
Diseases of Farm Animals
ABORTION.
—The expulsion of the fetus at a period too young to live exterior of its mother is known as abortion. This ailment may afflict cows, mares, sows, and ewes, but is most common among cows.
Abortion may be divided into two classes, namely, accidental and contagious. If we had nothing but the accidental form of abortion to contend with we would hear very little about this disease, owing to the fact that it is perfectly natural for animals to carry their young full time, regardless of how much they may be punished or abused while in this condition if their system be free from the germs of contagious abortion. On the other hand, contagious abortion is a very destructive disease, causing heavy losses to the stockmen of the United States as well as to other countries. Contagious abortion is divided into two classes, namely, acute and chronic. Cows afflicted with the acute form of abortion may lose from one to three calves. Cows, after passing from the acute to the chronic form of abortion, may carry their calves full time, but are as badly affected with the germs of contagious abortion as they were in the acute form, when they were losing their calves.
