The American Reformed Cattle Doctor: Containing the necessary information for preserving the health and curing the diseases of oxen, cows, sheep, and swine, with a great variety of original recipes, and valuable information in reference to farm and dairy managementDadd, George H.
Science
The American Reformed Cattle Doctor: Containing the necessary information for preserving the health and curing the diseases of oxen, cows, sheep, and swine, with a great variety of original recipes, and valuable information in reference to farm and dairy management
Dadd, George H.
Veterinary medicine
[6] Water very frequently accumulates in the belly or chest, after
blood-letting.
[7] On remonstrating with a man who was about to administer half a pint
of turpentine to a cow, he replied, "She has no business to be a cow!"
We presume that some of the regulars have just as much, and not a
particle more, of the milk of animal kindness as this man seemed to
show.
NATURE, TREATMENT, AND CAUSES OF DISEASE IN CATTLE.
The pathology, or doctrine of diseases, is, as we have previously
stated, little understood. Many different causes have been assigned for
disease, and as many different modes of cure have been advocated. We
shall not discuss either the ancient or modern doctrines any further
than we conceive they interfere with correct principles. In doing so, we
shall endeavor to confine ourselves to truth, reason, and nature.
We entirely discard the popular doctrine that _fever_ and _inflammation_
are disease. We look upon them as simple acts of the constitution--sanative
in their nature. Then the reader may ask, "Why do you recommend medicine
for them?" We do not. We only prescribe medicine, for the purpose of aiding
nature to cure the diseases of which _they_ (the fever and inflammation)
are symptoms, and we do not expect to accomplish even that by medicine
alone. Ventilation, diet, and exercise, in nine cases out of ten, will do
more good than the destructive agents that have hitherto been used, and
christened "cattle medicines."
The great secret of curing diseases is, by accurately observing the
indications of nature to carry off and cure disease, and by observing by
what critical evacuations she does at last cast off the morbid matter
which caused them, and so restores health. By thus observing, following,
and assisting _nature_, agreeably to her indications, our practice will
always be more satisfactory.
Whenever the great outlets (skin, lungs, and kidneys) of the animal body
are obstructed, morbific and excrementitious substances are retained in
the system; they irritate, stimulate, and offend nature in such a
manner, that she always exerts her power to throw them off. And she acts
with great regularity in her endeavors to expel the offending matter,
and thus restore the animal to a healthy state.
Suppose an animal to be attacked with disease, and fever supervenes; the
whole system is then aroused to cast out this disease: nature invariably
points to certain outlets, as the only passages through which the enemy
must evacuate the system; and it is the province of the physician to aid
in this wise and well-established effort; but when such means are
resorted to as in the case of the cow at Waltham, (p. 98,) instead of
rendering nature the necessary assistance, her powers and energies are
entirely crushed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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