is attended with a cough, which ultimately destroys the lungs and kills
the animal. If taken at an early stage, this disease is curable, and
the following treatment is generally considered as the most
efficacious. The animal is first raked, after which a large dose of
grease is poured down its throat; acids are said to have the same
effect, and give immediate relief. When neither of these remedies can
be procured, many of the emigrants have been in the habit of mixing
starch or flour in a bucket of water, and allowing the animal to drink
it. It is supposed that this forms a coating over the mucous membrane,
and thus defeats the action of the poison.

Animals should never be allowed to graze in the vicinity of alkaline
water, as the deposits upon the grass after floods are equally
deleterious with the water itself.

In seasons when the water is low in the Humboldt River, there is much
less danger of the alkali, as the running water in the river then comes
from pure mountain springs, and is confined to the channel; whereas,
during high water, when the banks are overflowed, the salts are
dissolved, making the water more impure.

For _colic_, a good remedy is a mixture of two table-spoonfuls of
brandy and two tea-spoonfuls of laudanum dissolved in a bottle of water
and poured down the animal's throat. Another remedy, which has been
recommended to me by an experienced officer as producing speedy relief,
is a table-spoonful of chloride of lime dissolved in a bottle of water,
and administered as in the other case.

RATTLESNAKE BITES.

Upon the southern routes to California rattlesnakes are often met with,
but it is seldom that any person is bitten by them; yet this is a
possible contingency, and it can never be amiss to have an antidote at
hand.

Hartshorn applied externally to the wound, and drunk in small
quantities diluted with water whenever the patient becomes faint or
exhausted from the effects of the poison, is one of the most common
remedies.

In the absence of all medicines, a string or ligature should at once be
bound firmly above the puncture, then scarify deeply with a knife, suck
out the poison, and spit out the saliva.

Andersson, in his book on Southwestern Africa, says: "In the Cape
Colony the Dutch farmers resort to a cruel but apparently effective
plan to counteract the bad effects of a serpent's bite. An incision
having been made in the breast of a living fowl, the bitten part is
applied to th