Powdered lobelia, 2 ounces.
" charcoal, 6 ounces.
Common salt, 1 table-spoonful.
Boiling water, 2 quarts.
When cool, strain, and inject.
If the animal is only blasted in a moderate degree, this treatment will
generally prove successful. Some practitioners recommend puncturing the
rumen or paunch; but there is always great danger attending it, and at
best it is only a palliative: the process of fermentation will continue
while the materials still remain in the paunch. Some cattle doctors make
a large incision into the paunch, and shovel out the contents with the
hand; but the remedy is quite as bad as the disease. For example, Mr.
Youatt tells us that "a cow had eaten a large quantity of food, and was
hoven. A neighbor, who was supposed to know a great deal about cattle,
made an incision into the paunch; the gas escaped, a great portion of
the food was removed with the hand, and the animal appeared to be
considerably relieved; but rumination did not return. On the following
day, the animal was dull; she refused her food, but was eager to drink.
She became worse and worse, and on the sixth day she died."
In all dangerous cases of hoove, we must not forget that our remedies
may be aided by the external application of warmth and moisture;
flannels wrung out in hot water should be secured to the belly; at the
same time, the legs and brisket should be rubbed with tincture of
assafoetida. These remedies must be repeated until the animal is
relieved. Steady and long-continued perseverance in rubbing the abdomen
often succeeds in liberating the gas. If the animal recovers, he should
be fed, very sparingly, on scalded food, consisting of equal parts of
meal and shorts, with the addition of a few grains of caraway seeds. A
drink composed of the following ingredients will aid in rapidly
restoring the animal to health:--
Marshmallows, 2 ounces.
Linseed, 1 ounce.
Boiling water, 2 quarts.
Set the mixture near the fire, and allow it to macerate for a short
time; after straining through a sieve or coarse cloth, it may be given
and repeated at discretion.
_Remarks._--As prevention is much more convenient and less expensive
than the fashionable system of making a chemical laboratory of the poor
brute's stomach, the author would remind owners of stock that the
practice of turning the latter into green, succulent pasture when the
ground is damp, or permitting them to remain exposed to the night air,
is among the direct causes of hoove. The ox and many other animals are
governed by the same laws of nature to which man owes allegiance, and
any departure from the legitimate teachings, as they are fundamentally
ingrafted in the animate kingdom by the Omnipotent Creator, is sure to
subject us to the penalty. We are told that, during the night, noxious
gases and poisonous miasmata emanate from the soil, and that plants
throw off excrementitious matters, which assume a gaseous form, and are
more or less destructive. Now, these animals have no better powers of
resisting the encroachments on their organization (through the agency of
these deleterious gases) than we have; they must have atmospheric air to
vitalize the blood; any impurity in the air they breathe must impair
their health. Still, however, the powers of resistance are greater in
some than in others; this explains the reason why all do not suffer.
Sometimes, the gases are not in sufficient quantities to produce instant
death, but only derange the general health; yet if an animal be turned
into a pasture, the herbage and soil of which give out an excess of
nitrogen and carbonic acid, the animal will die; just as a man will, if
you lower him into a well abounding in either of these destructive
agents. From these brief remarks, the farmer will see the importance of
housing domestic animals at night.