A Core for Foot-and-Mouth Disease.

Otago Witness, Issue 1640, 28 April 1883, Page 7

A Core for Foot-and-Mouth Disease.

In view of the prevalence of this disease at Home at the present time, the following letter from the London Times maybe of interest: — " Iv arranging the papers of my brother, the late Mr T. 0. Scott, I have come aoross to-day a cure for the foot-and-mouth disease, which he called attention to in a short note in the Times in 1869. And I find over 130 letters addressed to him requesting a copy of the recipe, which he had had printed for gratuitous distribution. Will these 130 gentlemen, or some of them, tell us, through your columns, whetherthey tried the remedy and personally saw it tried, and what the result was ? The following was the recipe :— ' Dissolve lib of bluestone (sulphate of copper) in a gallon of soft water, and wash the animal's mouth with this from a sponge attached to a stick ; thon put two oi three large tablenpoonfuls of oatmeal and pdtfnded alum, mixed in equul proportions,

J nto their mouths, .as near the root of the tongue as possible, and the discharge of an immense amount of saliva will be the result. Wash their feet, especially between the claws, with the same solution, and allow them to stand on dry straw. Three applications daily will cure the worst case, especially now when the disease is so much milder than formerly. During the continuance of the complaint all food must be given chopped, as the cattle cannot lay hold of anything with their tongues,' Sulphate of copper costs about 8d per lb, and pounded alum less, and oatmeal can be obtained at any corn chandler's. The disease, as a rule, is not deadly. The worst effect of it is to throw back the condition of the affected animal two or three months. My brother asserted that the above prescription would arrest its progress in three days. He considered it an infallible curp, as tested by himself in 100 cases in Cheshire when tho disease first appeared there. One obvious advantage of the above prescription is that it can be applied by any ordinary cowman or cattleman, thus obviating the employment of professional veterinaries, who must inevitably carry about this — as my brother deemed it— most infectious disease in coming from place to place. Chloride of lime my brother considered a valuable preventive, testimony of its efficacy having been borne to him at the time by Mr Parsons Fowler, the well-known importer of Alderney cattle. This disinfectant is to be sprinkled over the cowhouse floors, under trees where | the cattle are in habit of standing, at gateways, ! &c— W. Scott."