Diseases of Cattle - How to Know Them; Their Causes, Prevention and Cure - Containing Extracts from Livestock for the Farmer and Stock Owner
By A. H. Baker
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Diseases of Cattle - How to Know Them; Their Causes, Prevention and Cure - Containing Extracts from Livestock for the Farmer and Stock Owner - A. H. Baker
BOOK II
PART II
Diseases of Cattle
HOW TO KNOW THEM; THEIR CAUSES, PREVENTION AND CURE
FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 2.
The difference in the appreciation and value of the various cuts of meat in London and Paris is very great; and as these rules have been introduced also in the large cities of America, our stock-breeders are vitally interested, and should study this question, so they may know what portions of the body to develop by a judicious choice of breeding animals. For instance, a pound of the fillet represented by Nos. 4 and 5 in figure 1, and No. 1 in figure 2, is worth 44 cents in Paris, while the portions 13, 14 and 15 in figure 2, bring only 12 1/2 to 14 cents. Nothing pays better than judicious and intelligent breeding of our meat supplies; and as the demand grows with the increase of population, the question assumes greater importance with each succeeding year.
DISEASES OF CATTLE.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
As cattle occupy a foremost place in the wealth and resources of the country, furnishing its beef, milk, butter and cheese, and, as secondary products, its hides, tallow, glue, animal charcoal, etc., the prevention of disease among them—especially of contagious diseases—and their treatment when sick become very important, not only from a financial standpoint, but also from considerations of the public health and comfort.
II. Pathology of Cattle and of the Horse Compared.
Cattle are a phlegmatic, plethoric race of animals, intended by nature to eat large quantities of bulky food, to be prepared for digestion while quietly lying down, by the process of rumination, and to take but little exercise. This fat, plethoric condition of the system renders them more susceptible to certain classes of diseases than the horse, especially to the blood poisons, that with them are so rapidly and certainly fatal, such as rinderpest, anthrax and Texas fever. On the other hand, their nervous organization being much less sensitive, they are not nearly so liable to attacks of such disorders as tetanus, paralysis, etc.
Cattle not being fed to produce muscle without fat, are not subject to lameness and disease of the air-passages to the same extent as the horse, with whom speed and endurance are the main points. In fact, soundness or unsoundness, as the terms are used by horsemen, is of little importance to the cattle owner, so long as the animal can move with any degree of comfort at all; while such affections of wind-passages as roaring, whistling and heaves are to him unknown. Still, that distressing, incurable disease, so common in the human race, pulmonary consumption is very prevalent among cattle, especially milch cows, probably on account of the drain on them of giving milk; this weakens the system, making them more susceptible to the infection. It is thought by many to be primarily a bovine disease, the horse seeming to possess an almost total immunity to it.
On account of their lower grade of vitality, they are more susceptible to influences that develop local diseases, as, for example, the miasma of low, marshy ground, especially that which has been overflowed; and also to poor fodder, from must, or being affected with ergot, etc.
There is a peculiar sympathy in disease among cattle, as is illustrated in regard to abortion. It is a familiar experience that if one cow aborts through accident, one or more of the others will abort through sympathy.
Owing to their natural tendency to plethora, cattle seem peculiarly predisposed to malignant ulcers, swellings, glandular enlargements and even gangrene. To these they are more subject than any other of the domestic animals.
The nostrils, pharynx, larynx and trachea (wind-pipe) are much smaller than in the horse, which is one reason why they cannot travel so fast nor so long as the latter,—the wind fails. This also explains why suffocation is a more imminent danger in cases of throat inflammation in cattle than in horses, needing specially prompt and active treatment, even to the operation of tracheotomy.
The different arrangement of the digestive apparatus in cattle as compared with the horse, is very marked, the former having four distinct stomachs, while the latter has only one stomach, but a greater length of intestines, which are also much more sensitive. Inflammation of the bowels, so common with the horse, is quite rare with the ox.
Cattle are less tolerant of disease and pain than the horse. They give up in discouragement, after one or two attempts, and pine away under pain very fast. They soon become indifferent to life, often refusing to make one effort to rise when perfectly able to do so; and, as weakness follows more rapidly in inflammatory diseases, these require more energetic measures and an earlier administration of tonics and stimulants than when treating the horse.
III. Action of Remedies in Cattle.
Remembering the phlegmatic nature of cattle, remedies work very differently with them than with the horse. Medicines should always be given them in liquid form, and more bulky than for the horse; and they should contain something in the nature of a mild stimulant to hasten their passage through the first three stomachs, and on to the fourth stomach and intestines, where they can be taken up into the system by the absorbents.
Aloes, though so excellent a purgative for horses, is of no use with cattle; while epsom salts, that are so drastic and cold for horses, on cattle work like a charm. Calomel and other forms of mercury act violently on cattle, salivating them very soon, and is excreted through the milk, often affecting sucking calves seriously. Oils, used as purgatives, act well on cattle, and especially melted lard. Mustard, as a blister, acts with more vigor on cattle than on the horse, but turpentine less.
IV. The Only Safe Principles for Most Cattle Owners.
But few outside of the more common diseases of cattle will be treated of in this work, the better to adapt it for its ready use, as a book for reference, by the average stock owner; and the recipes will be as few and simple as they can be made without detracting from their value. It is a mistake to suppose that any great variety of violent drugs can be used with advantage by the public generally. The public would, no doubt, learn by experience, but it would be at the cost of losing many valuable animals. What we advocate and would like to instil into the minds of our readers, in conjunction with the importance of thorough preventive measures, is to treat the ordinary diseases as early and vigorously as possible, with the simplest efficient remedies, and when any extraordinary case arises requiring more violent means, to employ an educated, well qualified veterinary surgeon.
V. Familiarize Yourself with the Phenomena of Health.
As it is obvious that no person is fitted to treat disease who is unable to distinguish at least its prominent symptoms, every stock owner should familiarize himself with the ordinary phenomena of health, especially with the pulse, respiration and temperature. Scarcely less important than these, in many forms of disease, are the appearance of the hair and skin, and that of the eye; the posture and movements; and the character and frequency of the appetite, and also of the discharges.
VI. The Pulse, Respiration and Temperature.
The normal pulse in cattle ranges from fifty to fifty-five per minute; in old animals, but especially in calves, it is somewhat more. The pulse is the most conveniently taken from the artery passing up along the lower part of the neck on either side just under the cervical vertebræ, or else that beneath the tail. In health it is softer and less tense than it is in the horse.
The breathing it requires no special skill to diagnose—only a moderate amount of practice. The soft, rustling sound of the healthful respiratory murmur,
when the ear is placed to the chest, is altogether changed when there is any ailment affecting the lungs or air passages. The number of respirations per minute (ordinarily ten to fifteen in cattle) can be easily counted by the heaving of the chest. Some practice, however, will be required to make one a first-rate judge of the sound obtained by percussion, which, in health, is always clear and resonant. Percussion consists in placing the forefinger of the left hand upon the chest, and striking it smartly with the ends of the first three fingers of the right hand.
The temperature, in all animals, is a vital index of unsurpassed value. It can be approximately measured by feeling the skin, ears and legs,—in cattle the horns also, at their root. But what is termed the clinical thermometer,
which is so shaped that its bulb can be conveniently inserted into the rectum, (to remain two or three minutes), is infinitely better, as it gives results so much more exact. Its use has established the important fact that different febrile diseases have different ranges or temperature, each having its own dead-line,
beyond which recovery is impossible. Thus, a horse with cerebro-spinal meningitis will certainly die soon after reaching a temperature of 104°; yet 108° or even 109° by no means indicate a fatal termination, in a case of pneumonia.
VII. Other Special Signs of Disease.
A staring coat,
as it is termed, in which the hairs stand out like bristles, is an obvious symptom, and sometimes the only one, of a low state of health. Shivering, when the animal is exposed to only moderate cold or to none at all, challenges immediate attention; for it is, infallibly, the ushering in of an attack of some disease, usually severe. Cold sweat coming out on the skin of an animal severely ill indicates a desperate, if not fatal, condition. The posture when standing, the method of lying down or getting up, the action in moving around,—these are all significant, and should be noted carefully.
The countenance, and especially the eye, if observed closely, will betray the distress and pain which the dumb sufferer cannot express in words. The muzzle, which in health is moist, (or covered with dew,
as many call it), in disease, especially in fever, becomes unnaturally hot and dry or cold, and sometimes changed in color—sometimes paler, but more commonly injected with blood. One of the earliest signs of serious constitutional disturbance, as well as of certain special disorders, in the case of cattle, is the suspension of rumination,—that is, ceasing to chew the cud. A nearly coincident general symptom, in cows, is the drying up of the milk.
CHAPTER II.
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.
I. Contagious Pleuro-Pneumonia.
This is the most fatal and contagious of the diseases to which cattle are subject, except rinderpest (a contagious enteric fever), which has never yet gotten a hold in America, and Texas or Spanish fever (splenic fever). It was first introduced into the United States in 1843, at Brooklyn, Long Island, by a cow that was purchased from the captain of an English vessel, and several times since then, at various other ports, in the bodies of imported cattle. It spread more or less slowly through parts of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, District of Columbia, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. Through the combined efforts of the Federal government, exerted through the Bureau of Animal Industry, and the various state governments, it has been effectually stamped out by quarantining and slaughtering all cattle in infected districts. This was done at an enormous expense, but it is the only way of radically ridding the country of this most insidious disease.
It is a contagious fever of cattle, with local inflammation of the pleura, (the thin membrane lining the thorax and investing the lungs), and the lungs, accompanied by great prostration, and in its more malignant forms ending in death in a few days. It is, however, often slow in its development, weeks, or even months elapsing during which the contagion works in the system, before finally revealing its fatal symptoms.
So terribly contagious is this disease, and so insidious in its spread, that exposed cattle may be transported long distances before it breaks out. The period of incubation is very indefinite, ranging from eighteen days to two months. It develops in different cattle in all degrees of severity from a small focus of pneumonia, the size of a walnut, or a patch of pleurisy two inches in diameter, to a complete consolidation of both lungs, or a pleurisy involving every square inch of the lining of the chest. Mild cases appear to recover; they will show all the signs of good health, will feed well, fatten fast, cows will breed and give milk, as usual, but they do not recover; they simply become chronic, and the focus of the disease is liable to break through the capsule that surrounds it, and reinfect that animal at any time, and thus form a new focus from which the disease may spread to other animals. Hence, the farmer suspecting it in his herd should at once apply to a competent veterinary surgeon, if there is one within reach, to verify the disease. If such expert authority be not at hand; kill the animal or animals at once, slash the skin to prevent any person from digging the animal up for the sake of the hide, and bury deeply; if quick lime can be gotten, use it freely over the carcass. Then disinfect carefully all stables and outhouses, and in case other animals are suspected, isolate and quarantine them and await developments.
PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.
Section of affected lung in contagious pleuro-pneumonia. The thin end shows black hepatization; the center, red. At the thick end interlobular infiltration and several blocked vessels are shown.
How to know it.—The earlier symptoms are apt to pass unnoticed. The first is a rise in temperature to 103° or 106° F., shown by introducing a clinical thermometer into the rectum, the normal temperature being on an average of 101.5° F.; there will be loss of appetite; a staring