Agricultural and Pastoral. MURRAIN IN CATTLE,

Otago Witness, Issue 567, 11 October 1862, Page 6

Agricultural and Pastoral. MURRAIN IN CATTLE,

An East Indian correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle mentions the following as the treatment adopted by the Indian cow doctors : —

" The above malady prevails to a great extent in the East ludies, and is looked upon as one of the greatest curses which can visit the land, The bull, the ox, and the cow are held sacied by the Hindoo population of the country ; and neither bribes, temptation, nor the terrors of the severest punishment would induce a strict disciple of Bramah to taste the flesh of the animals under consideration. The Mahommedan people, nevertheless, render the carcass of the ox an ordinary feature in their dietary catalogue, and the party appointed to slaughter the creature is invariably a priest of the Mussulman faith, who uses a religious ceremony upon the occasion. Beasts affected with disease are strictly proscribed from becoming a sacrifice to meet, withal, the accustomed *' laniary " purposes. In cases of murrain, native cow doctors are invariably consulted ; and as this disease has, from time to time, proved largely fatal to the herds pertaining to this our own country, as well as to those of the European continent, the treatment pursued by the Indian veterinary \ nctitioners in such instances may perhaps, |if pointed out and particularized, meet with that degree of attention which the nature of the subject deserves. Your correspondent, upon one occasion, witnessed the proceedings adopted by a native vaccine practitioner in a coufinned ea^e of murrain. A Guxierat bullock, used for draught purposes, was affected with the above ■virulent disease. The animal had lost the use of both its limbs, and was lying prostrate on the caith, apparently laboring under the most excruciating pain. It seemed quite unconscious of food, when proposed to its presence, whilst the glands of the throat were evidently turgid and swollen. Three individuals were in attendance upon the suffering beast, one of whom, it would appear, was a native ' cow doctor.' The mode of operation pursued upon the occasion was as follows:— The surgical practitioner was furnished with an iron implement somewhat resembling a small door-scraper, with which he commenced rasping the roof of the animals palate, wit h a view to abrase the whole of the pustules which had formed themselves in that immediate locality. lie, in the next place, took a couple of hnndfuls of black salt (muriate of soda), and continued rubbing the same for some time into the various parts ot the mouth of the patient. The two attendants now secured the forelegs of the beast, the hoofs of the feet evidencing the virulence of the malady. The opeiator produced a sharppointed instrument, similar to a shoemaker's awl, and was occupied some time in piercing with this weapon the knee-joints and fetlocks of the Biifrerer, squeezing from the wounds he had infikted, a profusion of green-tinted coagulated lymph. Having completed this part of the operation, he proceeded with a hot iron brand to sear the fore and hinder legs of the beast after the lvmnner in which horses are ' fired.' Finally, he mixed up in a kedgeree-pot a decoction — composed of Glauber suits, cardamums, tumeric, ginger, and cummin-seeds — and, placing the whole in a drenching horn, pasi-ed the same into the creature's stomach ; shortly afterwards anointing the mouth and palate of the brute with a copious supply of mustard-oil, and subsequently abandoning him to his fate. In the course of a fortnight afterwards, the writer of these remarks noticed the same bullock insitting upon its feet, and partaking of a little heap of chopped plaint-tin leaves, which hud been prepared for the convalescent animal . Your correspondent afterwards learned th;il the above course of practice proved gonerally serviceable in cases of ' murrain in cattle.' If the above remarks should turn out in any way useful to cowkeepers or dairy-folk in this country, the object of the recorder of the circumstances detailed will have been fully accomplished."