lotions of vinegar and water, to bathe the parts in the neighborhood of the spleen, or a cold shower-bath applied by means of a watering- pot, are also efficacious in these cases.
Columella, in his quiet style, thus treats of this disease:—
"Also the pain of a distempered spleen uses to plague them; the which chiefly happens when there chances to be great droughts, and, as the Bucolic poem speaks—
When on all sides the apples scattered lie,
Each under its own tree;
for it is an insatiable cattle the swine, which beyond all measure eagerly seek after that which is sweet. They labor and are affected in the summer and early autumn with a swelling or growth of the spleen, from the which they are relieved if troughs be made of tamarisks and butcher's broom, and filled with water, and set before them when they are thirsty; for the medicinal juice of the wood being swallowed with the drink, puts a stop to their intestinal swelling."
The great difficulty here is, how troughs can be made of the museus (butcher's broom.) In all probability the true meaning is, that the trough should be lined with the branches of this plant; and the tamarisks signifies doubtless the tamaricus e trunco mentioned by Pliny, lib. xxiv. 9, where he speaks of canals and troughs being made of the tamarix. Translators are given occasionally to make similar mistakes or alterations of text.
RUPTURE OF THE SPLEEN.
We quote this case from the "Veterinarian" for 1841:—
"A pig belonging to Mr. Roberts of Whitchurch, died after having only been ill for a day or so, and that unattended by any definite symptoms. On post-mortem examination the spleen was found to be of about three or four times its natural size, and completely congested. In one place there was a small rupture surrounded with coagulated blood. All the other viscera were perfectly sound."
ABSORPTION OF THE SPLEEN.
This case is also derived from the same source, and we present it to our readers as a testimony of the different forms of disease which occur in the spleen of the swine.
"A fat pig, weighing fifteen score, was killed, and upon cutting it up, the spleen was found to be almost entirely absorbed. It was of the usual length, but not above half an inch in width or the eighth of an inch in thickness in any part, and weighed but seven drachms. What there was of it, however, appeared to be perfectly sound, and was surrounded by a considerable portion of adepts."
