Parturition Fever, Etc. 303 



to the first week after parturition, and its gravity is greater the 

 more it is relate,! to the parturiiut act. Cases occurring in the first 

 three days are usually fatal. The gravid uterus contains a very 

 large amount of circulating blood, and when the womb contracts, 

 the greater part of this is suddenly thrown upon the general cir- 

 culation, already plethoric to an undue extent. As yet the 

 mammge are congested and there is no free depletion through 

 that channel, so that there is a marked temporary plethora and 

 vascular tension, before the system can establish free elimination 

 and, as it were, strike a healthy balance. In this period of tran- 

 sient plethora there lies a source of great danger to the general 

 system and, more particularly, to the brain. 



Emotional Excitement connected with the removal of the calf 

 is urged by Giinther, Jaumain, Felizet and others as a prominent 

 cause. This, however, must be rare, at the most ; the disease 

 does not attack the primipara that should be most susceptible to 

 this influence, but the mature animal, at her third calving or 

 later when she is already well accustomed to this treatment ; it 

 supervenes so quickly on parturition in many cases, that there, 

 was no opportunity for such emotion ; it occurs also in cows, the 

 calves of which have remained with them or have received no at- 

 tention from them. 



Absorption of Toxic Matters. The theory of a poisoning of the 

 nerve centres is indicated in the familiar name of milk fever, sug- 

 gesting an absorption, or poisonous condition of the milk. Lafosse 

 charged the trouble on the uterine milk secreted in the cotyledons 

 and re-absorbed in quantity. Abadie and Kaiser attributed it to the 

 products of gastro-intestinal ferments, which acted on the nerve 

 centres like a deadl}^ organic alkaloid. Hartenstein incriminated 

 the products of nuiscular contraction in the womb and sys- 

 temic muscles during parturition. Ehrhardt invoked a similar 

 auto-intoxication, going on before parturition and only reaching 

 its climax in connection with that act. 



AUemani and Gratia attribute the disease to the absorption of 

 the first milk (colostrum), and there are several considerations 

 that strongly favor this hypothesis. The disease sets in always 

 in connection with the parturient development and congestion of 

 the udder and the secretion of the first milk. In exceptional cases 

 it may even appear just before parturition. Even upon the calf 



