640 PATHOLOGY OF PARTURITION. 



BOOK V. 



PATHOLOGY OF PARTURITION. 



Under the head of Pathology of Parturition, we intend to include those 

 diseases which accompany or follow this act, and are more or less related 

 to it. Some of these maladies are of great pathological interest and 

 practical importance, and deserve the closest study. The parturient or, 

 if we might use the term, puerperal period, is a very remarkable and 

 critical one in the life of the female animal, and it becomes all the more 

 so as the creature is submitted to the influences of domestication, and is 

 rendered more and more artificial by skilful management and breeding. 



During pregnancy, a large amount of nutritive material has been ab- 

 stracted from the parent to nourish and develop the foetus;, and when 

 birth takes place this is retained until the lacteal secretion has been fully 

 established. Consequent upon this reflux, there is established a kind of 

 plethora, which, together with the nervous excitement and succeeding 

 prostration induced by the straining and pain of labor, renders the 

 animal more susceptible to the influence of morbific causes of various 

 kinds. Hence we have maladies which are peculiar to the parturient 

 state, or if common at other times, are at least much aggravated when 

 they appear at this period. Though the parturient diseases of animals 

 are not so numerous as those of the human female, yet they are neither 

 unimportant nor few ; and it is possible that, with the advance of vet- 

 erinary science, their number will be increased — so far as exact definition 

 and differentiation are concerned. 



In this respect, the prominent part infection by septic material plays 

 in the development of parturient diseases is to be remarked. It is but 

 recently that this agency has been recognized as one well worthy of 

 consideration in veterinary pathology; and the closer its effects are 

 studied, so the more inclined are we to attribute diseases — and particularly 

 those of the parturient state — to one common source, septic infection. 



Of course, there are other maladies or disturbances, chiefly of a local 

 character, the etiology of which cannot at present be traced to septosis, 

 and which merit notice in this part of our work. 



The diseases which we have to consider are: i. Vaginitis ; 2. Leucor- 

 rhoea ; 3. Metritis, Metro-peritonitis^ and Parturiejit Fever; 4. Parturient 

 Apoplexy; 5. Post-partum Paraplegia; 6. Parturient Eclampsia; 7, Ep- 

 ilepsia Uterina ox Mania Puerperalis ; 8. Parturient Laminitis ; 9. Mam- 

 mitis ; 10. Agalactia; 11. Injuries to the teats. 



CHAPTER I. 



Vaginitis. 



Inflammation of the vagina does not often exist independently, but is 

 generally an accompaniment of inflammation of the uterus, or "Metritis," 

 which, being the more serious evil, masks this malady. Nevertheless, 

 vaginitis may occur independently of metritis, and is then generally due 



