How to Treat Cat Diseases

Abscess

Abscesses can occur on any part of a cat’s body, also between the toes, where they are called interdigital cysts. Cats are likely to get more abscesses than are dogs, as they are more likely to get into fights (the males). Their fine claws scratch their opponents, the scratches close up, holding inside them any dirt which may have entered, inflammation and then abscesses result. Thorns and other matter from wild plants also easily enter the fine skin of cats and result in abscesses.
Treatment

Hot fomentation with a brew of blackberry leaves or elder leaves or blossom. Apply the brew as hot as the cat can tolerate, on a piece of flannel. Repeat the treatment three times during the day and once late at night.
An alternative treatment is to macerate several cloves of garlic within the heart of an onion. Heat the onion thoroughly until it has softened, then sprinkle with a little common salt and apply, as hot as the cat will tolerate, on to the abscess, and hold in position with one’s hands until the onion has turned cold. Similar to instructions above, repeat the treatment three times and apply one time at night.
A further treatment is raw tomato, in a very ripe condition, pressed into a pulp, skin and all, sprinkled with a little salt and placed on the abscess, then bandaged into place with a piece of cotton cloth soaked in cold water.

Wounds

Wounds in cats usually occur from fights, or from being cut by sharp twigs when tree-climbing, or from becoming entangled in barbed-wire fencing.
Treatment

Rosemary herb, leaves and flowers, is the specific treatment for all types of wound. It is a natural disinfectant and a speedy healer. I have treated truly dreadful wounds in all types of animals, merely by frequent bathing with a strong brew of rosemary. One handful of rosemary herb, cut finely, to one pint of cold water. Lid over the pan, heat slowly, allow to boil for a few minutes as it is for external use. With the lid still on, allow to stand and brew for half an hour or so, then bathe the wound with the rosemary. Bathe, as advised above for abscess, during the day and once in the night. If the wound is a deep one and needs to be covered do not place a bandage directly on to the wound, first layer the place with cold-water-rinsed green healing leaves of any of the following or with a mixture of several: mallow, geranium (garden not wild), nasturtium, castor-oil leaves (called Manus Christi, because Christ used them so often in his healing work in the Holy Land, and the castor-oil shrub leaves do resemble a human hand in their five-finger form), or cabbage (young) leaves. Place a cold-water-dampened bandage to hold the leaves in place and, following each bathing with rosemary brew, change the leaves covering the wound, applying fresh ones.
If a cat injures a leg or foot, give the following treatment immediately: pound up one raw onion of medium size, sprinkle on a little salt. Soak a cotton cloth in vinegar, then spread the onion on to the cloth and wrap around the leg, bandaging firmly so that it will stay in place. This treatment gives immediate pain relief, also cures the sprain or bad bruising. Repeat several times daily and for some days, if the cat still shows pain and continues to limp badly.

Cats are prone to splinters because they are such active climbers, and will also go into thorny places when hunting prey, and in the home they are constantly using their claws on woody objects. With splinters it is a case of like cures like.
Treatment

Make a strong brew of hawthorn or blackthorn twigs, and apply this hot to the place of the splinter. Apply the thorn brew, hot, frequently during the day, or for several days, until the area has softened and the splinter has surfaced. Then remove the splinter, using a thick needle end to prise it out of the flesh, having boiled the needle point to sterilize it first.

With the exception of some dangerous forms of bleeding, which I shall now describe, follow the exact treatments described for wounds.
Treatment

Very heavy bleeding from accident wounds: If you are fortunate enough to have available sage plants, pull several handfuls from the sage, crush the herb in your hands and press over the wounds: this is how Spanish hunters treat heavy bleeding, a method which I have used with much success on myself and many types of animals.
Another wonderful wound herb is sphagnum moss, and a supply should be kept in every home for emergency use on people as well as for animals. Sphagnum grows in moorland places where conditions are boggy and when this moss has been dried it can absorb a very large amount of moisture, therefore when applied to badly bleeding wounds it soaks up the blood and helps to check the flow. This moss is also rich in natural iodine and so is antiseptic as well as powerfully absorbent. (Do note that natural iodine is very different from the chemical form of iodine, which dulls the natural healing process and hardens - even burns - the skin and causes formation of excessively coarse scar tissue.)
An ancient method of checking heavy bleeding is to plug the wounds with cobwebs. Cobwebs for use in wounds must be taken from clean places, and any dust must be shaken off them. The spider-webs are then inserted into the wounds. I remember plugging with cobwebs leaking udders of cows in Mexico, their udders having been torn on barbed wire: this use of cobwebs amazed the Mexicans, but was very successful.
Another proved wound herb is yarrow, used as a lotion, following its brewing, likewise comfrey root, which has a unique mucilage content, is excellent to restrain bleeding and is very healing as a lotion.
When there is bleeding from the mouth, the case should be treated for shock, not medicated at all, only placed in a quiet, dim-lit place, and packs of sphagnum, or layers of cotton wool, placed around the mouth to absorb the blood. When signs of recovery are showing, then slowly give, in a plastic bottle, sips of a mixture of lime blossom and vervain (Verbena) tea, as a shock remedy, a teaspoon of each to a cup of water, brewed to make a strong tea, sweetened with honey.
When there is bleeding from the ears, fracture of the skull is the likely cause and there is little chance of a cure.

When the cat shows discomfort after eating, with hiccups, bloating, coughing, then put on to a semi-fast, giving only watered milk sweetened with a little honey. Small meals of flaked barley (which is internally healing and soothing), soaked in milk or buttermilk can also be given.
Treatment

As medicine, give a strong tea made from dill seed and camomile herb, one teaspoon of each to every cup of warm water. Give also charcoal tablets, cut small for getting them down the cat’s throat. Make sure the charcoal tablets are made from vegetable charcoal and not from animal bones. The latter is far cheaper, but is of very limited internal purifying power.

Fast for several days, allowing only weak honey-water, and improve this water by use of the curative herbs, dill and camomile.
Treatment

Follow this fasting with healing meals made from barley flakes, slippery elm flour, and a little honey mixed into warm milk. Juices of the following fruits, peaches, bilberries, pomegranates are curative: one dessertspoonful of any of these fruits given three times daily. If not available, give rose-hip tea.
Follow on this internal soothing treatment with light meals of steamed or baked fish, sprinkled with finely-cut green herbs, chickweed, parsley, cress, celery, dill or cleavers. Chickweed and parsley are binding in diarrhoea. Buttermilk can also be given. Also raisins, the seedless ones. They absorb excess fluid from the bowels but do not block them. Never try to suppress diarrhoea with chemicals or with clay-type products which block up the bowels. Diarrhoea is a useful cleansing process, let it run its natural course, only help the case by providing a light semi-fast of things which heal and soothe internally, but do not block or harden the intestinal system. As with indigestion, the purifying vegetable charcoal tablets can also be given.

This, of course, is the reverse of diarrhoea, just described. There are two prevalent causes of constipation in cats. First, lack of roughage in their diet. In addition, too many bones given frequently in a week are constipating as well as wearing down the teeth over-much. (Wolves sometimes have tooth problems from much eating of bones; their teeth get worn down and they then cannot kill their prey effectively.)
However, the major reason for constipation in house-confined cats is that their owners do not pay sufficient attention to the cat’s litter-tray. Cats have a very sensitive power of scent, and they object to bad odours. As cat excreta has an unpleasant smell, animals will delay having to excrete on a dirty litter tray, and so become constipated.

Treatment

Increase the roughage in the diet by giving many times in the week a dessertspoon of finely grated raw carrot, a teaspoon of grated coconut, and a teaspoon of raw bran (not commercial-type bran sold in fancy packets). If you can obtain that sesame-concentrated product known as tahina (sold in many health food shops) then add a teaspoon of that to the diet.
Replace daily the litter in the litter trays. Sprinkle this with ash from a wood fire if available, or collect from the countryside a quantity of pine needles and add a handful of pine daily to the litter tray.
In cases of severe constipation, when the cat seems to have great difficulty in excreting at all, then dose with senna pods (using the large variety). Two senna pods to two large teaspoons of water. Soak all day, then give at night, adding a pinch of powdered ginger to prevent the pods from griping (griping is a problem with senna). A little honey can be added to the senna water, as it tastes unpleasant. Of course only the infusion, not the pods, is given.
Finally, concerning constipation, it should be emphasized that if cats are compelled to use dirty litter-trays, they will probably delay excreting for long periods, thus harming the natural nerve signal to excrete when the bowel is ready to empty itself. This, in time, could result in bowel cancer.

Also called feline distemper, infectious enteritis, feline typhus. This is the most frequent feline ailment and their greatest killer. In truth it is an advanced, far worse, form of common cat distemper which, purpose-sent by Nature, was to cleanse the felines of toxic internal accumulations. But presentday, with feline health greatly on the decline due to unnatural diet and the general lack of exercise, this disease has developed into a very severe one indeed. It is less common among country-living cats, but is a veritable plague among the town-dwellers. The disease develops very suddenly, with little pre-warning. When young kittens have lost their short time of disease immunity given to them from their mother’s milk, they will have little resistance to this virus, and may die within two days. (Do not despair! Nature-raised kittens are not likely to develop this disease at all.)
It is not known for sure how this disease is transmitted, though it is believed to be taken from the saliva drips, or from vomit, or from urine and excreta of infected cats, deposited on the earth or on grass, or even on street pavings. It is likely also to be carried by houseflies. Anyway, this disease spreads fast and epidemics are frequent.
First symptom of Panleukopenia is a very elevated temperature. The normal cat temperature of around 101.5-102.5°F increases to 105°F, or even higher. The cat becomes very lethargic, the eyes sink into the face, the head hangs as if its neck cannot support it, and the body quickly begins to appear very hydrated.
The ailment worsening, the cat then begins to vomit, first dear watery vomit, then yellow with liver bile or, yet worse, streaked with blood. The cat has a fetid smell.
Treatment

There is only one basic treatment and that is of the wild, fasting the cat. Wild creatures have one supreme law; when they are ill or injured they go into hiding in some quiet and dark place, preferably a cave or some deep bushy thicket (preferably of a prickly kind, so that they cannot be attacked by some hunter animal when they are in a weak state and unable to defend themselves). In this chosen solitude the sick creature fasts from all food, may even have to abstain from water, if water is distant and no rain falls. In this fasting time the body and its immune system can concentrate all its powers on overcoming the invading disease bacteria, carrying out a powerful internal self-cleansing. Its body powers are not diverted for the always major task of food digestion (food is not needed at such critical times), and those powers can fully concentrate on curing the ailment. A cat can survive several weeks merely on water. (’Fast and pray’ the greatest of the healers, Jesus Christ, taught the sick, and miracles were achieved.)
For medicine: The following are required - a supply of senna pods, powdered ginger, raspberry-leaf tablets, rose-hip tablets (preferably those two herbs combined as one tablet), slippery-elm bark powder, flaked barley.
First, do not try and reduce the fever. Remember those words I have already quoted of the great doctor, Hippocrates: ‘Give me a high fever and I will cure an ailment.’ Sick creatures (animal and human) generate a fever to burn up the invading bacteria and when high fever is present the case does not care to eat food and likes to sleep, fasting and sleep being great self-healers.
Immediately prepare a dose of senna pods. (For preparation of senna laxative, see above, under Constipation.) Give the senna nightly, while any fever is present.
Every early morning give two raspberry/rose-hip tablets, two tablets if they are combined, or one of each if they are not combined. These tablets supply a concentration of vitamin C, much needed in this ailment.
Instead of ordinary water, use barley water, made by pouring hot water over flaked barley, a cupful of barley to a pint of water, water kept well below boiling heat. Steep the flakes in the water for several hours and then drain off the water; reheat this barley water to tepid heat only, and then stir in one dessertspoon of honey.
Give no other food until the temperature returns to normal. Then slowly introduce flaked barley, well liquefied in warm milk and sweetened with honey, for several days. Then also lightly steamed on baked white fish (not mackerel) midday and evening meals. Later steamed or roasted chicken can be given.
An important warning: after prolonged fasting the cat will be hungry. For the first few days allow only very small portions of solid food, an approximate four tablespoons of solid food per meal. Overeating following a fast can distend the stomach so dangerously that the case can die. (In the concentration camps of the Nazis, thousands of people died from overeating when rescued, their former starvation diet replaced too hurriedly by large meals of heavy foods.)

This is an ailment of the stomach area and is indicated by vomiting, obvious stomach colic pains and high fever. Kittens do not develop this ailment to the extent of the previous ailment, Panleukopenia, but some do succumb.
Treatment

Exactly as described for Panleukopenia, but omit the senna laxative. For medicine, sprinkle powdered ginger into the barley/honey-water, to calm colic pains, ginger to be a mere pinch only, put into the liquid, as it is very strong. Further, make a brew of mallow leaves and roots, a large handful to a half pint of water. Allow to steep, then squeeze the resultant mucilage into the barley/honey-water and later into the barley/honey/milk fluid. Give vitamin С tablets, as described for Panleukopenia.

In both these serious feline ailments, do remember that an essential part of the treatment is the provision of a well-shaded and quiet place where the cat, fighting for its survival, can rest undisturbed.

Cats are well known to ‘get under the feet’ of their owners. This is especially likely when owners are carrying good-smelling things from cooker to table. The owner stumbles over the cat and, if hot liquid foods are being carried, the cat very likely will be scalded.

Treatment of scalds must be immediate, no delay. If treated immediately scald scars do not develop. Long-haired cats needs to be clipped in the area of the scald so that the dressing being used can reach the skin.

Treatment

The best-ever for scalds is one I learnt in Spain and it consists of vinegar and honey (the two great remedies of the famed Greek doctor Hippocrates). Bathe the scalded area with pure vinegar, keep applying vinegar for ten minutes, then spread thick honey over the scald areas. Apply the honey in generous amount so as to exclude all air. In all forms of scalds and burns, the exclusion of air is of the utmost importance. Keep applying honey until all pain seems to have ceased even when the scalded area is touched by the human hand. Application of honey, every few hours, may have to continue throughout the day or night.

Another excellent treatment for scalds is given by applying finely-grated raw potato. Wash the potato and then, using a metal grater, grate finely. Then place the potato pulp on the scalded area and hold in place by a cotton bandage moistened in vinegar. Apply freshly-grated potato every few hours.
A third remedy is whites of several eggs applied to the scald or scalds and, as above, bind over with a cotton bandage moistened with vinegar.

Note: burns are treated in exactly the same way, as above. Exclusion of all air is of equal importance. These exact remedies are also excellent for human scalds and burns, because cats ‘getting under feet’ can also cause scalds to humans when they are carrying hot foods.