PA R TURIENT A POPLEXY.—PA R TURIENT COLL A PSE. 663 



comparatively poor condition ; but then it will be found that their hygienic 

 management is at fault. For instance, as Saint-Cyr observes, they are 

 Cows which, having been scantily fed during a long winter, are abundantly 

 supplied with food in the spring ; or they are Cows which, purchased in 

 low condition, receive a large supply of food from their new owner. 

 Kohne (Gurlt and Hertwig's Magazin, 1855) states that he had occasion 

 10 observe eighty cases of this disease at Kemper (Rhenish Prussia), and 

 that the majority were Cows which, bought lean in Holland some time 

 before parturition, had passed without any gradual transition from the 

 Dutch pastures to the stables of the Rhenish feeders, where they received 

 a large amount of food. Kniebusch {Ibid.) and others have made similar 

 observations. It has also been remarked that a uniform, and ev^en abun- 

 dant diet, is less dangerous than an abrupt change from scarcity to 

 generous allowance. 



Permanent confinement to the stable also acts in a similar manner to 

 abundant and stimulating food, by inducing plethora and laxity of fibre. 

 Thus it is, that while the disease is prevalent in the cowsheds of towns, 

 or in those from which the cattle are seldom driven out to graze or for 

 exercise, it is almost, if not quite, unknown in hilly pastures. 



Age, or rather the development of lactation, has also a powerful influence. 

 When the secretory power has reached a certain point, the Cow appears 

 to become much more predisposed to an. attack. Thus it is asserted that 

 parturient apoplexy has never been observed in a primipara, and very 

 rarely indeed before the third calf, when the lactiferous system has almost 

 attained its maximum development in the more precocious breeds. In 

 twenty-nine cases reported by Haycock {Veterinarian, 185 1), 3 occurred 

 after the third calf, 5 after the fourth, 16 after the fifth, 2 after the sixth, 

 3 after the eighth. After the third calf, or even previous to its birth, 

 dairy-keepers are averse to purchasing the better-bred Milch Cows. 



Temperature is supposed to influence the production of the disease, and 

 especially exposure to cold. The suppression of the cutaneous functions, 

 and the determination of the blood from the surface of the body to the 

 internal organs, must favor congestion of these organs. Therefore it is 

 that currents of cold air, lying on cold ground, and cold fluids ingested 

 immediately after parturition, have been looked upon as powerful occa- 

 sional causes. Sanson thinks that the sudden expulsion of the blood so 

 abundantly contained in the uterine mucous membrane and cotyledons 

 — and which should be only slowly diffused — forces that fluid into the 

 neighboring vessels, and surcharges them beyond measure; while Ayr- 

 ault is of opinion that the cold air, entering the uterine cavity by its 

 partially dilated os, drives the blood from the mucous membrane into the 

 other viscera, suddenly checks the lochial secretion, and thus gives rise 

 to the disease. This lochial secretion plays an important part in the 

 genesis of the malady, according to several authorities. 



Other writers suppose that the disease is more common during warm 

 than cold seasons. In fact, it prevails in the most diverse temperatures, 

 and it is as serious in cold as in warm weather. Sometimes the number 

 of cases is very great, without any reference to heat or cold ; then almost 

 suddenly they subside, and no more outbreaks occur for some time. This 

 has led to the supposition, again, that it depends for its development on 

 a peculiar condition or epizootic constitution of the atmosphere, but in 

 what this consists no one has attenfipted to explain. Kohne says: " It is 

 certain that when one of these periods of vitulary fever prevails, a change 



