Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/145

 To my surprise, after taking a few doses that fowl really did regain her health and spirits. During the summer the invigorating cordial was frequently administered, with varying results. Patients with strong constitutions survived it, others died; but the doctor’s faith in the efficacy of the remedy remained unshaken.

He had several baffling cases; for instance, there was a hen that looked perfectly well and ate ravenously. When wheat was thrown out, she would start for it on the run, but would soon begin to wobble like an exhausted top, and would fall over, perhaps several times, before reaching the goal, often landing there on her back, when she would turn on her side and gobble wheat as deftly as the well ones. She was soon placed in a private sanitarium, and her meals were carried to her until death came to her relief. I pronounced this case epilepsy; though Tom said it was a clear case of locomotor ataxia, and that not even the wise ones of the Agricultural College could have saved her.

We had one frightfully small chicken with an abnormally large head; it could walk a very little in a stiff and awful way, but couldn’t stand at all and maintain its equilibrium, except with its feet very wide apart and its bill poked in the ground as an extra brace. In this case the physician’s diagnosis was “dropsy of the brain.” It did look like it. As the bantling couldn’t keep within even hailing distance of its mother, it was brought to the house for the rest-cure. Here it was