_Cause._--Any thing that can reduce the vital energies.
_Symptoms._--A gradual loss of flesh, although the animal often feeds
well and ruminates. The excrements are of a dark color, frothy, and
fetid, and, in the latter stages, appear to be only half digested. There
are many symptoms and different degrees of intensity, during the
progress of this disease, indicate the amount of destruction going on;
yet the author considers them unimportant in a practical point of view,
at least as far as the treatment is concerned; for the disease is so
analogous to dysentery, that the same indications are to be fulfilled in
both; more care, however, should be taken to prevent and subdue
mortification.
In addition to the treatment recommended in article _Malignant
Epidemic_, the following injection may be substituted for the one
prescribed under that head:--
Powdered charcoal, a tea-cupful.
Common salt, 2 ounces.
Pyroligneous acid,[11] half a wine-glass.
Warm water, 2 quarts.
Throw one quart of the above into the rectum, and the remainder six
hours after the first.