That Last Glass of Milk

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Dad came through the kitchen door with a bucket of milk fresh from the morning’s milking. The kitchen was the center of life in our modest farmhouse. The kitchen was not only the source of food, but it held the wood stove, which was the only source of heat in the house. Mom ruled the family from the kitchen.

All life entered through the kitchen door, the back door to the house. The front door was used only to access the front porch on rare occasions or during the summer when we boys would sleep on the old bed on the front porch.

Mom kept 2 large pans of milk on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator. She would allow the cream to rise to the top 24 hours before skimming the heavy layer of cream off the top of the milk. Living on a Jersey dairy, the raw milk contained about seven percent butterfat. We always had an ample supply of cream. It was used for whipped cream, for topping on desserts, like pies or berries, and any excess was churned into butter.

With three growing boys in the house, plus Mom and Dad and a sister, we would go through at least 2 gallons of milk in a day. We laid down a lot of calcium in our bones. It was rare for anything other than milk to be served at mealtime.

I grew up on raw milk. But that was a different time. In those days, a calf was born on the farm, grew up, and had calves on the same farm. It was a rare event for an outside cow to be brought into the herd. Herds were routinely tested for Brucellosis and TB. In such a closed herd environment where the milking was done by family members, and it was handled properly, the risk to the family from raw milk was very slim.

That is not the case today. Routine testing is no longer done because those diseases are rare. Other organisms are transmitted in raw milk, usually from poor sanitation or handling. Some microorganisms can be present in raw milk coming from undetected mastitis in a cow. 

Closed herds are as rare as the small family farm. When I was growing up, a herd of 50 or 60 milk cows was a large herd. All the cows had names, and I could recognize each cow by her udder. Today, a small herd is 400 or 500 cows, with large herds numbering in the thousands. Milkers are hired regularly, often with a questionable experience base. Diseases in the milking cow may or may not be detected on a timely basis. Raw milk scares me today.

When we got a new load of alfalfa hay, the milk’s flavor would be different or a time. Actually, probably just different, and it would take us a few days to adjust to that change. Then in the winter, when we would switch back to grass hay, there would be another period of adjustment.

When I joined the Army, one of the most surprising things was the variety of beverages offered at mealtime. I always chose to drink milk, not because I didn’t enjoy the other drinks, but because that was what one drank with a meal.

When I went to Korea, things were a little different. The Army shipped milk to Korea as a powder. They had a large plant in Seoul that reconstituted it. Then it was distributed to all the mess facilities in the country.

I almost gagged on my first glass of milk in Korea. The reconstituted milk was terrible. Worse than the milk from the worse truckload of alfalfa at home. But it is hard to change a farm boy’s habits. I gagged the stuff down, and after a few days, my taste was adjusted, and it was fine. I drank milk the entire 13 months I was in Korea. With some of the long hours I was on duty, I also learned to drink coffee. But that was only on duty, never with a meal.

Then comes one of those moments that changes one’s life forever. It happened at the Seattle Airport. Our flight back to the States was a long one. We had 13 hours of flight time and crossed the international dateline. We arrived in Seattle at 10:00 AM on the same day that we had left Korea on at 2:00 PM.

A group of us from the same unit were on the plane. We sat down for breakfast at the Seattle Airport while we waited for our flights back home. I ordered milk. After drinking the Army’s reconstituted milk for 13 months, this real stuff was awful. I couldn’t gag it down. So I had coffee instead.

That inability to handle milk continued through my leave time at home. Then I headed to Germany to finish my enlistment. In Germany, I was stationed in a small town, Schöningen, and lived away from the regular Army installations. I guess there was milk available, but I drank either coffee or beer with my meals.

That last glass of milk at the Seattle airport was the last glass of milk that I ever drank or tried to drink.

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One Needle Poke Or Another

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Critter was Karen’s problem child. He hated the clinic. And he was almost impossible to control on the exam table without the help of Karen.

Critter was a Sheltie. He was well cared for, and Karen and her family thought the world of him. It helped that he was on the smallish side for a Sheltie, but even the small dogs were difficult to control if they were convinced that you would do them harm.

With both Karen and Ruth struggling to control Critter, I worked through the exam as fast as possible. Getting a worm pill down him was a little like feeding an alligator, all teeth and jaws were snapping. The little plastic pill gun saved my fingers but suffered some fatal bites.  It would have to be retired. Then came the vaccination. There was real fear in Critter’s eyes as he eyed me out of the corner of his eye.

“Make sure that it is Critter that gets the injection,” Karen said. 

“Yes, that would be an unwelcome ending to this ordeal,” Ruth said.

“Let me tell you a little story,” Karen said. “Just to justify my concern.”

Karen was not much larger than Ruth. She was a nurse at the Lebanon hospital. Her short dark hair had a few streaks of gray, but she was probably close to my late 30s.

“I was getting ready to flush a catheter in the hospital one afternoon,” Karen said. “The patient was not as bad as Critter, but he was a little jumpy. Just as I had the needle to the catheter, and he jumped. Not a little jump, he really jumped. The needle and syringe flew into the air. Instinctively, I reached out and caught it. The needle pierced two of my fingers. I was lucky that it was a sterile needle, and not much came of it. Not much except for a hole through two fingers. I think about that every time I flush a catheter now.”

“I have to admit, Karen, that I poke myself every once in a while,” I said. “But, I have never stuck a client.”

With everything completed with Critter, I set him on the floor and watched him dance around, happy as could be. He took a treat from my hand, a completely different dog.

“I was going to see if you guys would clip his nails,” Karen said. “But I think he can only tolerate so much at one time.”

Ruth smiled, “I think he is not the only one who can only tolerate so much at one time.”

“So now, before you go, I have to tell you a real needle story,” I said.

“You probably work with some large needles when you work on those cows and horses,” Karen said. 

“I was working a herd of cattle, doing pregnancy checks, and doing some booster vaccines at the same time. In the 1970s, we commonly used automatic syringes when working a herd. I never liked them and seldom used them, but it allowed me to work a little faster. Pregnancy checking with my left hand in a sleeve and using an automatic syringe in my right. I would work several cows before changing sleeves and refilling the syringe.”

“That sounds like it would be difficult to keep everything clean,” Karen said.

“Yes, I could do three or four cows and then stop to clean up,” I said. “For some reason, I was working by myself, I am not sure I remember why.”

These pistol grip syringes were large, chrome, and glass syringes. The handle allowed you to stick the cow with the needle and pull the trigger to administer the vaccine. The benefit was not having to load a syringe with each dose.

“I was using needles that were one and a half inches long and 16 gauge. That allowed less resistance to the plunger. And I would change needles every time I stopped to clean up. So a needle would be used on three or four cows.”

“I had been working most of the afternoon, and I was probably tiring a little,” I continued. “But as I neared the end of the herd, I tried the hurry along a little. I checked this one big old Brahman cross cow and injected her with my right hand, a subcutaneous injection, behind her right elbow. I turned back toward the table to get ready for the last few cows. As I turned, I sort of let the syringe swing in my hand. When I stepped with my right leg, I buried that 16 gauge needle to the hub into my right thigh.”

“Did you inject yourself?” Karen asked.

“No, I would have really had a problem had that happened,” I said. “It was a clostridial vaccine for subQ use only. As it was, I had one sore leg for a few days.”

“I would guess you made some changes after that,” Karen said.

“I had been looking for an excuse to get rid of those syringes for some time,” I said. “They were becoming a thing of the past with all the single-use products coming into use. That was the last time I used them. And the last time I worked a herd without some help.”

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Snake Bit in Sweet Home

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I always told folks that if they wanted to get a veterinarian to treat Salmon Disease in the dog, don’t go to Kansas. Likewise, if you’re going to get a veterinarian to treat a snake bite, don’t come to Sweet Home. Actually, I have treated one local snake bite, and it was on a horse.

The call came in the early afternoon on a hot August day of 1977.

“Doc, I have a horse with a large swelling on his chest,” Bob said. “I was wondering if you could come up and get a look at him.”

Bob was a young man, maybe a few years older than me. He was well built, and his skin was deeply tanned. I suspect it was a farmer’s tan. He wore a wide brim hat with a snakeskin band on it.

“Sure, Bob, I can get up this afternoon,” I said. “I will need directions, and maybe a hint as to what you think might have happened.”

“I live on a small place upon the top of Fern Ridge,” Bob said. “It’s on the right side of the road, has a large white house and an old barn, you can’t miss it.”

“And, do you have any idea what happened to the horse?” I asked again.

Bob pointed to the band on his hat. “We have a few of these critters around up there. We see them more this time of the year. They tell me there is an old rock quarry over the hill from us a little way.”

A little later, I pulled onto Bob’s place. He had the horse tied to the fence a short distance up the hill from the barn. I surmised that what Bob was seeing was a large abscess if it was a snake bite. I was not confident that a snake could strike a horse in the chest, however.

Looking at the horse, a large grey gelding named Joe, everything was fine except for the sizeable fluctuant swelling on the right side of his chest, over his pectoral muscles.

I shaved the swelling. There in the middle of the swelling were two deep red fang marks.

“It must be a snake bite, alright,” I said. “I don’t see how a snake could strike this high.”

“I have this road that runs up the hill, and there is a steep bank on one side,” Bob said. “It could easily happen if the snake was on that bank.”

“How many snakes do you see around the place?” I asked.

“Not many, this one,” Bob says as he points to his hatband. “And the one that bit the horse. That’s enough for me. Folks say this is about the only area where they are found around Sweet Home.”

“How did you find that one?” I said, pointing to the hatband.

“I walked into the barn one afternoon, the cat was standing in a corner with a mouse in his mouth. This snake has him cornered in a standoff,” Bob says, pointing to his hatband again. “I ran back to the house and got my 22 pistol and decided the argument in favor of the cat.”

“Some story, that might make a person a little worried about doing anything under the barn,” I said.

“For sure,” Bob said. “What do you think about this bite on the horse?”

“I think this happened a few days ago, maybe more,” I said. “Just a big abscess right now. I will open that, drain the pus and flush the wound. Then give antibiotics and tetanus vaccination, and that should do it. You will need to keep the area clean and sprayed for flies. I will come back in a few days and remove the drain. It should be a piece of cake. If he was a racehorse, I would be a little worried about whether that muscle under this abscess was damaged, but it shouldn’t be a problem. And if it was damaged, there isn’t anything we could do about it.”

So that was about that, I scrubbed up the area. I injected a little Lidocaine before making a sizable hole in the abscess. The pus that drained was really rank smelling, not typical at all. After flushing the wound with Hydrogen Peroxide and followed with Betadine, I sutured a Penrose drain in the opening. I gave a hefty dose of long-acting Penicillin and a tetanus booster. 

After spraying the whole area for flies, Joe was fine until the fly spray but settled right down when it was over. I tossed the can of fly spray to Bob. “Twice a day, the more, the better. I will be back on the third day and check things over and get the drain out. I would expect things to heal fine.”

That was close to the extent of my snake bite experiences in Sweet Home until one evening when a guy comes through the door right at closing time. He has his wife and 5 kids and a hound dog with him.

“We just moved into town a few minutes ago,” Jim says. “We moved from Susanville, California. This hound was snake bit a couple of days before we moved, I was hoping you could get a look at him. He is really swollen.”

So the bite was at least 3 days ago, this was probably going to be a replay of the bite wound on Joe.

Jim lifted Burno onto the exam table. Burno was a large Blue Tick hound. He had more black on him than many Blue Ticks but some black ticking on white on his legs and front shoulders. His exam showed an elevated temperature and a submandibular abscess.

“I was afraid the swelling was going the shut off his airway,” Jim said.

“It is pretty loose, shouldn’t be a problem just yet,” I said as I opened Burno’s mouth and used my finger to explore the back of his mouth and upper airways.

“How do you do that without getting bit?” Jim asked. 

“I keep my thumb on the roof of his mouth with quite a bit of pressure,” I said. “That keeps his mouth open, that and then you have to be quick. His airway is fine. This is just a large abscess at this point in time. I will drain it with local anesthesia, flush it, and place a drain for a few days. That and antibiotics should be all he needs.”

Burno’s treatment was identical to Joe’s except for the tetanus vaccine. Dogs are pretty resistant to tetanus and are not routinely vaccinated.

So now, having treated two cases of snake bites, both multiple days old, I could almost call myself a novice. I have talked to veterinarians in other areas about how they handled snake bites, and there is a wide variety of opinions. Antivenom is expensive, but many veterinary patients survive without it. 

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