Extracts from an essay on the nature, causes, & cure of the cattle plague, which raged in this kingdom from 1744 to 1756 / originally published by Daniel Peter Layard ; containing the symptoms, also the method of cure and remedies which then proved successful in curing the disease, and now re-published from family documents and the original essay by Lieut.-Colonel Layard.

  • Layard, Daniel Peter, 1721-1802.
Date:
[1865?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extracts from an essay on the nature, causes, & cure of the cattle plague, which raged in this kingdom from 1744 to 1756 / originally published by Daniel Peter Layard ; containing the symptoms, also the method of cure and remedies which then proved successful in curing the disease, and now re-published from family documents and the original essay by Lieut.-Colonel Layard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ever, I cannot avoid recommending the greatest exactness in observing that the crisis is over; for the least laxitive medicine, or opening food given at the axon, or height of the disease, and consequently in the former stages of expulsion and maturation, will certainly bring on a scouring, attended with fatal consequences, or at least very difficult to be removed. An instance of this will be produced hereafter. vin. Take of aloes, aniseeds bruised, rhaponicum, or monk’s rhubarb, of each an ounce; or, instead of the rhaponicum, of the best Turkey rhubarb half an ounce; senna, and liquorice-root sliced, each half an ounce; boil all these over a slow fire in two quarts of small ale to three pints; strain the liquor, and add half an ounce, of soluble tartar, and give it warm to the beast. When a purge has worked briskly, it will he proper at night to give the beast a quart of small ale warm with a moderate quantity of spices, and bread crumbled in it. MUch cows recovering from the distemper, are not to be violently purged, especially if the owner should be desirous the milk should return; to afiect which, the beast must only be purged with the gentle di’ench ah-eady di- rected, No. Vn., and on the following days and intermediate ones firom the purging. A quart or two of milk-pottage three or four times a day, together with good sweet hay if in winter, and an hour’s grazing in dry pasture morning and evening if in summer, will he the likeliest method to recover the milk; beans, peas and chaff, being too hot and dry, will not answer the purpose. The beasts must also be allowed a sufficient quantity of warm water, or water gi'uel, to drink as much as they choose. It being only for want of proper fluids and good chyle, that the blood-vessels and the glands of the duggs do not secrete the milk as usual; these blood and secretory vessels being all along in a state of relaxations, whenever the tone of these vessels is recovered, and they are supplied with proper fluids, milk is pro-r duced anew. For the ease of the beast, and to encourage a flow of milk, the duggs should he washed twice a day with warm milk and water or water with bran boiled in it, and cloths dipped in such warm liquor should be applied to the duggs ah out a quarter of an hour each time. To prevent any incon- venience from too much milk being in the bag at once care must be taken, as soon as the bag begins to swell to milk the cow ; beginning by di’awing the beast moderately and continuing morning and evening by degrees, till the milk flows as usual. This method will secure the beast from a stagna- tion of milk in the duggs, and of course from abscesses forming in them. In winter time the cattle, upon recovery, should not be fu.ned out at once into the pasture grounds, let them be never so dry: towards the middle of the day, in fair weather, turning them out two hours, and then bringing them in again, will gi’adually use them to the open air. In summer, morning and evening will he the most suitable time; for the heat of the sun, or excessive cold, may bring on other disorders. There are two, which, for want of this attention many have fallen into and been lost, I mean a Vertigo dizziness, or swimming of the head, and a Marasmus or Consumption. , The vertigo, dizziness or swimming of the head, so weU described by Mens. De La Mettrie, and which it would be unnecessary here to treat of at full length, is, in the case before us, owing to a relaxation of the blood vessels, and nerves, and also to a fullness of blood from the quick secretion of the juices