VETERINARY. OUR VETERINARY COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1639, 21 April 1883, Page 9

VETERINARY. OUR VETERINARY COLUMN.

(Conducted by Mr Samuel Durham, 3T.R.C, V.S., London.)

{All questions must be sent in not later than Tuesday ; otherwise they will be too late for the current tissue.]

TUMOUR ON HORSE'S EYE.

Skttlkb, Southland, writes that be has a draught entire colt which sometime ago got its right eye injured, the sight is gone, and there is a large fleshy tumour apparently growing from th& eyeball ; is there any treatment ?

We should recommend excising the eye and the tumour with it. The tumour may bo of a cancerous nature, and no time should be lost in getting it cut out. Of course in this case you should consult a qualified veterinary surgeon.

SORE TEATS IN COWS.

W. W., Abbotsford, writes that his cow hag lately suffered a good deal from sore or chapped teats, and asks what its the beat remedy to apply:

A little turpentine ointment applied daily will soon heal them up.

FISTULOUS WITHERS.

Sbttleb, Waimea Plains, aaks what is best to be done with a horse which has an abscess on his withers. It came as a bump at first, being caused by a bad saddle. The abscess has begun to discharge a little matter. If this has existed for any length of timo it will be probably a very tedious case, and as there are bo many complications which must be provided for in the treatment of these cases, it is difficult to advise for the beat. Probably the putting in of a seton. is the best tieatment to pursue. This will give an exit for the purulent matter. The seton should be' moved up and down daily, and the sore places well bathed with warm water, and kept clean.

THE PULSE IN COWS.

Dairyman, Peninsula, wishes to be informed where is the best place to feel a cow's pulse, and the average number of beats per minute in a healthy cow. The most convenient place to feel the pulse is at the lower jaw, but this requires some amount of practice, and to the amateur will bo a matter of difficulty, the artery (the submaxiliary) not being so readily felt as in the horse. The pulse may also be felt at the temporal artery, situated at the root of tha ear, or at the heart itself. There are also man other places, but the above will suffice. With refer-r ence to the number of pulsations in a healthy cow, these vary somewhat according to age and conditiou. Animals warmly housed and fat will have the number of beats increased several strokes per minute as compared with others that are always kept in the paddock. However, as a general rule you will find that th« average number of beats in a healthy cow, four or five years old and of medium size, is from 45 to 50.

A bold suggestion is made by a St. Petersburg correspondent iv the columns of the Engineer. Men have not yet learned to fly thn mgh space like birds, but why should they not take a hint from the engineer, and con&fcrucfc an aerial line worked by electricity? Locomotives are almost useless off the rails, and aeronauts may be well content if they learn to fly along wires. The projector would substitute for theunwieldy balloon a light, stout plane, shaped like a kite, balanced by a car, and propelled by a screw driven at a good speed by a dozen or more Trouve machines arranged in couples along the propoller shaft. By a line of Btout telegraph wire led on poles from Berlin to Paris, or from Pekiu to St. Petersburg, he •would transmit 100 horse-power along the wire by powerful dynamos at stations, say a hundred miles apart, which would bo taken to the flying plane by two light wires, having contact carriages at the lower ends. Thewire would have to be strong to stand the strain of a heavy wind on the buoyant kite, but it ia much more probable that men will learn to fly along wireß before they are able to fly alone " pvomisouoitsly " through the air.