In order to prevent many of the diseases to which cattle are liable, it
is important that they be supplied with pure water. Cattle have often
been known to turn away from the filthy fluid found in some troughs,
which abound in slime and decayed vegetable matter; and, indeed, the
common stagnated pond water is no better than the former. Such water
has, in former years, proved itself to be a serious cause of disease;
and, at the present day, death is running riot among the stock of our
western, and also our northern farmers, when, to our certain knowledge,
the cause exists, in some cases, under their very noses. The farmers
ofttimes see their best stock sicken and die without any apparent cause;
and the cattle doctors are running rough-shod through the _materia
medica_, pouring down the throats of the poor brutes salts by the pound,
castor oil by the quart; aloes, lard, and a host of kindred trash,
follow in rapid succession, converting the stomach into a sort of
apothecary's shop; setons are inserted in the "dewlap;" the horns are
bored, and sometimes sawed off; and, as a last resort, the animals are
blistered and bled. They sometimes recover, in spite of the violence
done to the constitution; yet they drag out a low form of vitality,
living, it may be said, yet half dead, until some friendly epidemic
puts a period to their sufferings.
The author's attention was first called to this subject on reading an
article in an English work, the substance of which is as follows: A
number of working oxen were put into a pasture, in which was a pond,
considered to abound in good water. Soon after putting them there, they
were attacked with scouring, upon which they were immediately removed to
another field. The scouring continued. They still, however, drank at the
same pond. They were shifted to another piece of very sweet pasture
without arresting the disease. The farmer thought it evident that the
pastures were not the cause of the disease; and, contrary to the advice
of his friends, who affirmed that the spring was always noticed for the
excellence of its water, fenced his pond round, so that the cattle could
not drink; they were then driven to a distance and watered. The scouring
gradually disappeared. The farmer now proceeded to examine the suspected
pond; and, on stirring the water, he found it all alive with small
creatures. He now stirred into the water a quantity of lime, and soon
after an immense number of animalculae were seen dead on the surface. In
a short time, the cattle drank of this water without any injurious
results.
There is no doubt but that inferior kinds of water produce derangement
of the digestive organs, and subsequently loss of flesh, debility, &c.
We have frequently made _post mortem_ examinations of animals that have
died from disease induced by debility, and have often found a large
number of worms in the stomach and intestines, which, we firmly believe,
had their origin either primarily from the water itself, or subsequently
from its effects on the digestive function.
All decayed animal and vegetable matter tends to corrupt water, and
render it unfit for the purposes of life. Now, if the farmer has the
best spring in the world, and the water shall flow from it, as it
sometimes does, through whole fields of gutter or dike, abounding in
decayed filth, such water will be impregnated with agents that will more
or less affect its purity.