[1] Besides his own experience, the writer has drawn from the N. E. Farmer, the Albany Cultivator, the American Agriculturist, and other reliable American and English works, some of the remedies for diseases herein mentioned.
The Proper Mode of giving the above Remedies
Is for a person to hold the horn and cartilage of the nose, while another seizes and draws out the tongue as far as possible, when the medicine is thrust below the root of the tongue. If liquid, it must be inserted by the use of a bottle.
The probang is used when the former remedies are ineffectual. This consists of a tarred rope, or a flexible whip-stalk, three-fourths of an inch in diameter, with a swab or bulbous end. Two persons hold the head of the animal, so as to keep the mouth in a line with the throat, while a third forces it into the stomach, when the gas finds a passage out. A stiff leather tube with a lead nozzle pierced with holes, is best for insertion, through which the gas will readily escape.
Some one of the above purgatives should be given after the bloat has subsided, and careful feeding for some days must be observed.
Light gruels are best for allaying inflammation, and restoring the tone of the stomach.
When no other means are available, the paunch may be tapped with a sharp penknife, plunging it 1½ inches forward of the hip bone, towards the last rib in the left side. If the hole fills up, put in a large goose-quill tube, which to prevent slipping into the wound, may remain attached to the feather, and the air can escape through a large hole in the upper end.
Prevention is vastly better than cure, and may be always secured, by not allowing hungry cattle to fill themselves with clover, roots, apples, &c. When first put upon such feed, it should be when the dew and rain are off, and their stomachs are already partially filled; and they should then be withdrawn before they have gorged themselves.