The American Reformed Cattle Doctor / Containing the necessary information for preserving the health and curing the diseases of oxen, cows, sheep, and swine, with a great variety of original recipes, and valuable information in reference to farm and dairy management

by George H. Dadd

The indications to be fulfilled were as follows:—

1st. To lubricate the mucous surfaces, and defend them from the action of the drugs.

2d. To arouse the digestive function, and prevent the generation of carbonic acid gas.

3d. To allay nervous excitement, and remove spasms.

Lastly. To equalize the circulation.

The first indication can be fulfilled by slippery elm and marshmallows; the second, by caraway seeds; the third, by skullcap; and the fourth, by grains of paradise.

We have not been able, up to the present time, to ascertain the result.

Here, then, are a few examples of horse and cattle doctoring, which we might multiply indefinitely, did we think it would benefit the reader. We ask the reader to ponder on these facts, and then answer the question, "What do horse and cattle doctors know about the treatment of disease?"

It gives us much pleasure, however, and probably it will the reader, to know that a few of the veterinary surgeons of London are just beginning to see the error of their ways. The following contribution to the Veterinarian, from the pen of Veterinary Surgeon Haycock, will be read with interest. The quotations are not complete. We only select those portions which we deem most instructive to our readers. The disease to which it alludes, puerperal fever, has made, and is at the present time making, sad havoc among the stock of our cattle-growing interest; and it stands us in hand to gather honey wherever we can find it. "Of the various questions which present themselves to traders and owners of cattle respecting puerperal fever, the following are, perhaps, a few of the most important: First. At what period of their life are cows the most liable to be attacked with puerperal fever? Secondly. At what period after the animal has calved does the disease generally supervene? Thirdly. What is the average rate of mortality amongst cows attacked with this disease? Fourthly. What is the best method to pursue with cattle, in order, if possible, to prevent the disease? Fifthly. What is the best mode of treatment to be pursued with cattle when so attacked? To these several questions I shall endeavor to reply as fully as my own knowledge of the matter will allow me. They are questions which ought to have been answered years ago; [so they would have been, doctor, if, as Curtis says, your brethren had not been progressing in a circle, instead of direct lines;] but no one appears to have thought it necessary. They are questions of great importance to the agriculturist; if they were fully answered, he would be able to form a pretty accurate estimate as to the amount of risk he was likely at all times to incur with respect to puerperal diseases of a febrile nature. For instance, suppose it was fully ascertained, from data furnished by the correct observations of a number of practitioners, at what period of the cow's life the animal is most liable to be attacked with puerperal fever; the agriculturist and cow-keeper would be able, in a considerable degree, to guard against it, either by feeding the animal, or taking such other steps as a like experience proved to be the best. It is of no earthly use practitioners writing 'grandiloquent' papers upon diseases like puerperal fever; or in their telling the world, that puerperal fever is a disease of the nervous system; or that the name which is given to it is very improper, and not suggestive; or that bleeding and the administration of a powerful purgative are proper to commence with; together with hosts of stereotyped statements of a like nature—statements which are unceasingly repeated, and which are without one jot of sound experience to substantiate them. [All good and sound doctrine.]

"Question First. At what period of their lives are cows the most liable to be attacked with puerperal fever? I have in my possession notes and memoranda of twenty-nine cases of this disease, which notes and memoranda I have collected from cases I have treated from the month of July, 1842, to the month of July, 1849—a period of seven years; and with reference to the above question the figures stand thus: Out of the twenty-nine, three of them were attacked at the third parturient period, five ditto at the fourth, sixteen at the fifth, two at the sixth, and three at the eighth.