STAGGERS AT WEST CLIVE NEW ZEALAND.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 319, 27 October 1875, Page 2

STAGGERS AT WEST CLIVE NEW ZEALAND.

A correspondent of the Australasian says The staggers in animals complained of by two of your New Zealand correspondents is, perhaps, the result of invermidation, bearing in mind the season of the year, and if so, kerosene will be found an effectual remedy'. Horses dislike it greatly at first, so it is necessary to give it by degrees if administered dietetic-ally say two drops in a mash or other feed, increasing the dose to six drops twice or three times a day, or otherwise five-drop doses in a minim tube of gin, just poured on the tongue, twice or thrice a day. After a few doses, horses evacuate worms freely' if infested with them, as the commonly are at the fall, and immediately begin to thrive. Kerosene is also a specific in gripes, given in the latter way. I have sometimes found a second dose in half an hour requisite, and care must be taken to distinguish gripes from inflammation of the intestines, the symptoms being somewhat alike. Ergot of rye (secale cornutum) will produce staggers with purging. The ergot of rye-grass, as Lolium pratensis or Italicum, may do so, and that of L. tomentum (drake) it appears certainly will, though I speak from memory. Tincture of camphor (dose as for kerosene) would be an antidote, or, if not bandy, use tincture of opium. Grain doses for a horse of strychnine, laid dry on the tongue, say twice a day, would probably, be effectual, and I have had considerable experience with it in analagous cases; it also agrees with the horse. But having read in the Australasian that olive oil was remedial in cases of strychnia poisoning, and thereupon tried it, I can speak thankfully for its efficacy in two out of three events —the failure being a pup only six weeks old —and would administer it in cases of poisoning producing similar symptoms. Lime dust picked up with the feed on bare ground would, iu quantity, produce vertigo and diarrhoea, according to some authorities, not ready to my hand, and may', as well as water holding an excess in solution, be a fertile cause of the “ coast disease ” where lime and silex (equally pernicious in excess) abound in a comminuted state ; staggers being one of the symptoms of that disease. Nitric acid will neutralize the lime, and sulphuric acid the silex; five drops in half a wine-glass of water hourly, of either, or of each, if both be necessary, but in that case they must be exhibited alternately till the active symptoms abate, then 10 drops once a day, doubling the water also, for a horse, aud for sheep in proportion till cured. The presence of lime in deleterious quantity iu the stomach of the latter might be proven by autopsy. The effects of plants which, eaten in excess, produce staggers, as Solanum, nigrum, stramonium, &c., might be remedied by the olive oil, or, according to the rule of “similia similibus curantur,” which I have great confidence in, from very frequent practical application for 17 years, doses of a drop or two of nicotine m about a thimbleful of gin, preferable to brandy, being itself carminative and free from corrosive acids, repeated hourly till abatement of the active symptoms, would, ten to one, prove specific ; every smoker can manufacture it; or tincture of tobacco, say 5 to 10 drops, would do. Allow me finally to suggest the administration of kerosene iu small frequently-repeated doses to sheep by those who have them fluky or infested witii lung-worm ; most probably it would penetrate to the liver and bronchia if persevered with, and destroy the entozoa. There might, however, at first be a difficulty in its economical use for flocks. Permit me to add that, where the pasture is ample in proportion to the stock, there animals are as a general rule, freest from disease,

teaching us, when circumscribed for room to shift frequently, and that with critical attention to adaptability, and on no account to overstock,. save with strong store cattle or sheep to eat old fog, unless we have skill and much practical energy to remedy the evils thercoi pertaining both to the feed and the feeders.