Magner, who mentions all these methods, reserves his highest commendation for the method of tying the horse’s head round to his tail and letting him turn in a circle until he is giddy and falls over. Some stubborn cases get habituated to turning in one direction and continue obdurate until the head and tail are tied around on the other side and the rotatory motion reversed. When thoroughly dazed by this treatment, the animal is hitched up and will usually move on. If there is still an indisposition, stand by his head and tap the croup with a whip, calling on him to start. Or subject him to further rotatory treatment.
DELIRIUM.
A phenomenon in different morbid states; cerebral hyperæmia, anæmia, congestion, inflammation, intoxication, toxin poisoning. Symptoms: horse, ox, sheep, swine, dog. Treatment: adapted to primary disease present, narcotic, poison, and to degree of violence. Anæsthetics, soporifics, cerebral sedations, cold to head, eliminants, depletion or tonics and nutritious food.
Delirium or derangement of emotional or mental functions is usually the result of organic disease of the brain and especially of the cortical gray matter of the cerebrum. It is seen in hyperæmia, anæmia, faults of nutrition, intoxications and variations of temperature. The derangements of circulation may be in the meninges or in the nervous substance. The intoxications may be with mineral (lead, mercury), vegetable (opium, Indian hemp, belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium, strychnia), or other poisons, including the toxic products of microbes (as in pneumonia, scalma, rabies, influenza, Rinderpest, milk sickness, Texas fever, etc.).
Symptoms. These are usually an extraordinary and disorderly nervous excitement. Horses take expectant or ready positions of the limbs, plunge with feet in rack or manger, rear, turn, kick, bite, spring violently, neigh, and push or knock the head against the wall. Cattle bellow in a loud or frightened manner, attempt to kick and gore, grind the teeth and make movements of the jaws, froth at the mouth, dash themselves in any direction heedless of obstacles, push the head against the wall breaking teeth or horns, and moving heedlessly against fences, or trees, or into water or pits even to their own destruction. Sheep stamp the feet, butt, bleat, work the jaws, grind the teeth, leap, and move in a given direction regardless of obstacles. Pigs grunt, tremble, champ the jaws, run against obstacles, scratch the ground with their feet or snout and creep under the litter. They may even attempt to bite. Dogs are restless, whine, move in a circle, snap at straw, bars, doors, and other objects, and may show a disposition to bite. In all the domestic animals these delirious symptoms may closely resemble those of rabies. This has been particularly noticed in certain forms of poisoning. Pascault has found this in cattle that had eaten garlic and Cadeac in dogs that had eaten tansy.
The animals in such cases become morbid, dull, taciturn, they become usually hypersensitive, sometimes hyposensitive, have a change of voice, and show a readiness to resent and bite if interfered with, and even to wander away by themselves as in rabies. On the other hand they may be seized with lethargy and torpor as in dumb rabies, and with or without access of convulsions may pass away in a condition of paralysis.
Among other conditions these symptoms have been found to be associated with epilepsy, foreign bodies in the pharynx, gullet, stomach or bowels, with intestinal parasites, or with mycotic poisoning (ergotism, smut, the fungus of coniferous trees, etc.).
The lack of the extreme hyperæsthesia and excitability of rabies, and usually of the mischievous disposition to bite, the presence of foreign bodies in the mouth or gullet, and the evidence of disorder of digestion, with costiveness, tympany, and tenderness, and the history of the case may serve to differentiate. In cases of doubt the inoculation of a rabbit on the brain should demonstrate the absence of rabies by the absence of the characteristic symptoms after sixteen days.
Treatment. As delirium in animals is a deranged innervation from congestion, narcotic drugs, ptomaines, etc., it must be looked on as in most cases a mere phenomenon, pointing to a definite disease, or to a particular intoxication, and treatment must be directed toward the removal of the primary cause. Thus the remedial measures must be directed in the different cases to the encephalitis, meningitis, digestive disorders, contagious disease, or drug to which the affection may be traced. The patient must be put in a strong enclosure or securely tied so that he can do no harm: it will often be desirable to secure shade or cool air, or to apply cold water or ice to the head, and to quiet the nervous excitement by inhalations of chloroform, or ether, rectal injections of chloral, or bromides, or full doses of hyoscine, sulphonal, trional or tetronal. These may be pushed to the extent of inducing anæsthesia, sleep or quiet, as the case may be, and meanwhile other measures should be taken to eliminate the poisons, correct the congestion, or remove the source of irritation. Anæmic cases may demand iron and bitters, with an aliment rich and easily assimilated, while plethoric cases may require purgation, diuresis or even bloodletting. All noise and any cause of excitement must be carefully guarded against.