MAMMITIS OR MASTITIS. 699 



character, at other times it is putrescent and foetid. Microscopically, it 

 is found to be composed of particles of solidified casein, a few fat 

 globules, epithelium from the milk-vesicles and ducts, but especially pus 

 and red blood-corpuscles ; sometimes bacteria and micrococci are noticed 

 to be in considerable numbers. When abscess forms and ulceration takes 

 place, bundles of fibres of elastic tissue are often discovered in this fluid. 

 Chemically, it contains but little casein, milk, sugai^ or fat, but much 

 water and albumen. 



The progress of the disease is very rapid — more so than in either of 

 the other forms ; in twenty-four, thirty-six, or forty-eight hours — some- 

 times even in less than the first-named period — the disease has reached 

 its greatest intensity. The attack is generally very sudden — the animal 

 being apparently quite well when left for the night, and perhaps present- 

 ing all the symptoms described when seen again next morning. When it 

 has reached its culminating point, it may remain stationary for two, three, 

 or four days before passing to one of its ordinary terminations. Towards 

 the third or fourth day the vicinity of the gland becomes oedematous, and 

 this oedema may extend to beneath the chest and as high as the vulva : 

 in the Mare to the inside of the thighs, and down the hind-legs. 



Course and Terminations. 



The course and terminations of mammitis is a matter of much impor- 

 tance. It, as we have seen, rapidly passes through its different phases 

 until the fourth, rarely until the sixth day, when it terminates either by 

 resolution — which seldom indeed occurs without prompt treatment; 

 atrophy; induration; suppuration ; gangrene ; or even the death of the 

 animal. 



Resolution is, of course, by far the most favorable termination. In the 

 parenchymatous form it can rarely be rendered complete, even by the 

 most rational and vigorous treatment, after the second or third day ; in 

 the phlegmonous form it may occur so late as the fourth to the sixth day, 

 but seldom after the eighth. It is marked by a gradual diminution in 

 the intensity of the symptoms — general and local, and particularly in the 

 pain, which first disappears, then the tumefaction and solidity. 



Saint-Cyr lays much stress on the decrease in density with regard to 

 prognosis. If it persists beyond the time stated above : if after forty-eight 

 hours in parenchymatous mammitis, or six days in the phlegmonous form, 

 the gland has not, to any marked extent, lost something of its woody 

 hardness, there is great reason to fear that resolution will not be complete, 

 and that some portions will remain indurated, or that the mass will 

 become either partially or totally atrophied. 



Though the subsidence of the fever and diminution of the swelling are 

 in themselves favorable signs, yet they may be deceptive with regard to 

 thorough resolution ; and it must be recognized as more favorable when 

 the tissue of the gland resumes its softness and suppleness, rather than 

 when the swelling subsides rapidly and the hardness remains but little 

 altered. 



It is scarcely necessary to mention that the return of the normal secre- 

 tion to the affected gland is a most favorable sign, though this does not 

 occur very rapidly. For several days — from ten to twenty, or even more 

 — the fluid obtained from the teat of the affected quarter remains watery, 

 or rather serous, curdled, contains numerous colostrum cells, and is more 

 albuminous than caseous — coagulating readily by heat ; it contains but 



