FOOTNOTES:
[5] Inflammation of the peritoneum.
[6] Water very frequently accumulates in the belly or chest, after blood-letting.
[7] On remonstrating with a man who was about to administer half a pint of turpentine to a cow, he replied, "She has no business to be a cow!" We presume that some of the regulars have just as much, and not a particle more, of the milk of animal kindness as this man seemed to show.
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.