ase follows injuries to the head the
symptoms may not be manifested until two or three days (or longer) after
the accident.
_Treatment._--Recoveries are rare in spite of careful attention. To be of
any service whatever the treatment must be prompt and begin with the
disease. In the early stage, when the pulse is large, most cases will admit
of bleeding. Eight or 9 quarts of blood should be taken from the jugular
vein. This should be followed immediately by a purgative, the following for
a cow of average size: Epsom salt, 24 ounces; pulverized gamboge, one-half
ounce; croton oil, 20 drops; warm water, 3 quarts; mix all together and
give at once as a drench. About 2 quarts of warm water or warm soapsuds
should be injected with a syringe into the rectum every three or four
hours. It is best to keep the animal in a quiet, sheltered place, where it
will be free from noise or other cause of excitement. All the cold water
the animal will drink should be allowed, but feed must be withheld, except
bran slops occasionally in small quantities, or grass, if in season, which
may be cut and carried fresh to the patient.
The skull must be examined, and if sign of injury is found, appropriate
surgical treatment should be given.
During the convulsions all possible efforts should be made to prevent the
animal injuring itself. The head should be held down on the ground and
straw kept under it. Cold water may be continuously poured on the head, or
bags filled with ice broken in small pieces may be applied to the head.
Different authors recommend different remedies to allay the convulsions,
but for two reasons it will be found extremely difficult to administer
medicines during the convulsions: (1) While the animal is unconscious the
power to swallow is lost, and therefore the medicine is more liable to go
down the windpipe to the lungs than it is to go to the paunch; (2) the
convulsions are often so violent that it would be utterly useless to
attempt to drench the animal; and furthermore it must be borne in mind that
during this stage the functions of digestion and absorption are suspended,
and as a consequence the medicine (provided it finds its way to the paunch)
is likely to remain there unabsorbed and therefore useless.
A blistering compound, composed of mustard, 1 ounce; pulverized
cantharides, one-half ounce; hot water, 4 ounces, well mixed together, may
be rubbed in over the loins, along the spine, and back of the head on each
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