Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/176

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Ufualjbrought it uponthcfecreatures,wIiofe nofes being continu- ally neartbeground,gave thefeexhalations immediate entrance The method of cure feems to confift in two intentions ; the firft of abating the fever ; the fecond of reftraining the acri- monious malignity of the falts.

Purges of all kinds are cautioufly to be avoided ; and bleeding in the beginning is always neceflary, and muft be more largely admitted in the more robuft creatures. The common medicines given as febrifuges and cephalics, all do harm; the fumigations of diverfe kinds, all are idle or mifchievous ; and moft of thefe things intended as reliefs, tend plainly to the increafmg the difeafe, as they add to the accelerated motion of the blood, and break its texture more than before. The moft rational method of treatment is this : As foon as a beaft: is feen to be affected, let him be feparated from the reft and kept warm. When his mouth begins to be lore, let a clyfter be given ; and if this does not work, then a gentle emollient may be given by the mouth, made of le- nitive electuary and cream of tartar, diflblved in a large quan- tity of water-gruel ; this is the more neceflary if the crea- ture be fat: if a lean beaft be feized, bleeding is the firft thing to be done ; after this, a feton muft be made in the neck, and the parts about where the vein was opened fhould be fcarified. If the fever does not abate on thefe methods, the creature fhould be blooded again : then, inftead of the great quantities of watry liquors, which are ufually given, the creature fhould have fomething ftrong, fuch as a mix- ture of wine with its liquor, and that in conflderable quan- tity. When the fever abates, he is to be allowed but little drink for the three firft days, and that fhould be a decoction of mallows with a mixture of lemon juice, or fome other fuch acid. In cafes where the feton docs not difcharge kind- ly, a blifter muft be applied over it. When by this means the creature begins to recover, elm leaves and olive leaves, are to be mixed with the hay it eats ; the creature muft be walked out a little, and its litter changed for frefh : this fhould be done every day, in cafes where the creature is weak and poor.

For the prefervation of cattle from the difeafe, nothing is fo proper as the taking great care that they drink only clean and pure water, and that they eat only dry food till fome hours after fun-rife : they muft be carefully kept out of infected places, and their ftables fumigated, by burning in them frank- infence, juniper berries, and the like ingredients ; or by firing off fmall quantities of gunpowder at feveral times, or fprink- Iing vinegar and camphor on a red-hot iron. The creatures mouths fhould be wafhed at times with lemon juice, and their ears with vinegar or urine ; and no hogs, fheep, or other ani- mals fhould be fuffered to feed among them. Gazda de Pefte Bourn.

Thefe were the fentiments of Gazola on this fatal difeafe, which he had carefully attended to in all its ftages Lancifi, however, diffents from this author in fome particulars. He fays, that the diftemper was a true plague among the cattle ; and obferves, that this very plague among the oxen, was well known among the antients. It was firft brought into Italy from Hungary, and infected the sattle by the breath, by the pores of the skin, or by any other paffage that it found open. He prefcribes for the prefervation, the taking great care that they have perfeflly good food and drink ; and ad- vifes the wafhing their mouth and noftrils with a mixture of vinegar, garlick, fulphur, fait, and juniper berries; and both he and Gazola agree in advifingthe rubbing the creatures over with fweet oil. This author condemns all medicines, and even bleeding, but greatly recommends fetons, cauteries, and blifters. He advifes thefe to be ufed as foon as ever the crea- ture is perceived to be fick, and that not only on the neck, but on the moulders, thehips, and any other part. Lancifi, ap. Acta Eruditor. Ann r" i 5. p. 463. Francifcus Fantafti publifhed a treatife on the fame fubjeft, about the fame time ; and by his writings it appears, that the oxen were feized differently, and aflated with different fymp- toms in different places, tho' the caufc of the diftemper was evidently the fame in all.

Some of the cattle, he obferved, voided great quantities of blood by the urinary paffages. TheC: ufually died, and on opening them the blood was always found fluid, and the brain was often decayed, or full of a fcetid matter ; and the mar- row in their bones was found dried up and wafted, and all the humors were found evidently tending to a flate of corruption. This author rejects bleeding in all periods of the difeafe, as a practice that could be of no ufe in a cafe where the blood and humors had all loft their due ftate, and were tending to corruption. He commends fcarification and cauteries ; he al- fo greatly recommends the trcpaning the horns to the medul- lary part, and the making fetons in the ears, on their necks, and in their breafts ; the only internal medicine he prefcribes, is a mixture of the theriaca diatefl'aron, two ounces'; diofcor dium, one ounce; powder of peruvian bark, two ounces. rbisdofe is to be given every day for three fucceflive days, diflblved in three pints of the juice of brook lime, water crefs, and leurvygrafs, with the addition of a pint of ftrong white wine. John Baptift Mazzini, wrote in another part of°the world at the fame time, on the fame fubjea ; with him we find, that

the oxen which were feized with the difeafe, continually had a running of a mucous matter from their nofe, and a weep- ing at the eyes ; and that when the corners of thefe creature's eyes were wafhed with wine, in which fage leaves had been infufed, there came out feveral clufters of fmall and flender worms twifted one among another, and forming little bundles of twenty and more. ' He obferves aifo, that thefe creatures when affected, ufually carried their heads upward, not bend- ing to the earth as ufual. This author advifes every thing to be done to promote perfpiration : he prefcribes contrayerva and angelica root, in white wine, in large dofes once or twice a day warm, and recommends the fumigating their flails with juniper and bay berries. The wafhing their mouths and noftrils with wine and fulphur, is alfo prefcribed in his trea- tife : a decoction of rofemary, fennell, and fage, with white wine, vinegar, and fait, is alfo recommended as a drink to be often given ; and he prefcribes the holding their heads for- cibly in a depending pollute, that they may give opportuni- ty to the faliva to run out, and the warning their mouth with vinegar and fait to cleanfe it of the foulnefs. Mazzini, Lit- ter, ad Vallifnier. de Pefte Bourn.

Ox-eye, in the fea language, a name given by the feamen to thofe dreadful ftorms that are fomctimes met with on the coaft of Guinea; for at firft it appears in the form of ano.t's eye, and not much bigger ; but it defcends with fuch celerity that in a very little fpace of time, and often before they car! prepare themfelves for it, it feems to them to overfpread the whole hemifphere ; and at the fame time forces the air with fo much violence, that the (hips are fometimes fcattered fe- veral ways, fome directly Contrary, and fometimes are Funk down right.

Ox-eye, certbla, in ornithology. SeeCERTHiA.

Ox-fly, in natural hiftory, a fpecies of two-winged fly, bred from a fly-worm, hatched under the fkin of oxen, from the egg of the parent fly lodged there.

The fernale of this fly makes a number of fmall wounds in the backs of horned cattle, and in each of thefe depofits an egg ; which is afterwards hatched by the warmth of the crea- ture's body. As foon as hatched; the young worm finds it- fclf in a very convenient lodging, and in a way to be fur- nifhed with all the neceffaries of life.

The places were they lie are eafily difcovered, as there is ever a tumor about them, like that on the foreheads of children from falls ; within this, and under the thick skin of the crea- ture, is the worm lodged. The country-people know very- well that a worm is contained within each of thefe tumors but they are fomething miftaken as to the fly it comes from ; the gad-fly being the moft bufy about thefe creatures, and Hy- ing them moft vexation, they naturally enough have fuppofed this the produce of the egg of that fly ; but this is an errone- ous opinion : Mr. Vallifnieri feems the firft who underftood the true ftate of the cafe, ' and he has given a very full and excellent account of it.

Every one of thefe tumors on the ox has within it a cavity proportioned to the fize of the worm, and both the internal cavity, and the external tumor, always increafe gradually as the inclofed worm grows larger. In the middle of May thefe tumots are feen of their full fize, and are then an inch hi»h, and an inch and a half broad at their bafe. The greater number of thefe tumours are always found on cattle of about three years old. The number of tumors on the creature are uncertain, and are according to the number of eggs which have fucceeded from the laying of the fly; fometimes only three or four, fometimes twenty°or thirty, or more, are found on the fame creature. They are not regu- larly placed, but are ufually on the back about the fpine, tho' fometimes on the legs and fhoulders. Sometimes they ftand very clofe to one another; fometimes they are more diftinct and feparate. It is obferved alfo, that the oxen which feed on open plains are much lefs fubject to them than thofe that are kept in the neighbourhood of woods. At the time when the worm has obtained its full growth, and is about to leave the tumor, there is a perforation in it fuffici- ently plain to eyes accuftomed to obfervations of this kind ; nor is it indeed only at this time that this hole may be obferv- ed ; it is diftinguifhable at all times, if properly fought after, and is evidently the hole made by the parent fly to introduce its egg, which has never clofed, but, on the contrary, has opened more as the tumor increafed, and the inclofed' Worm grew; but toward the end of the time that the worm is inclofed, it enlarges much more quickly than at any other period. The hole is placed in various parts of 'the tumor, but verv rarely on or near its top, more frequently near fome part of its circumference. But thefe often, tho' near the circumfe- rence while the tumor is fmall, become fituated at its top, when it is grown to its utmofl fize, from the irregular <>rowth of its feveral parts. This hole is of very ffgnal fervice, and indeed of abfolute neceffity to ihe life of the animal inclofed; fince it is by means of this that it holds a .communication with the external air, and its pofterior ftigniata are placed as thofe of the reft of the fly-worms, near the hinder extremity of the body, and that part were they are is always placed di- reflly againft this hole in the tumor. When tile tumor is of a conflderable fize, thefe may be feen by the naked eye ; and

when