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581. Terminations.— In many cases, after the apoplexy has passed 

 off, and the secretion of milk has returned, the animal may be feeding 

 and chewing the cud, yet it cannot get up. In some instances the 

 patient recovers the use of its limbs in the course of from three days 

 to three weeks, or it may linger on for six or seven weeks, having to be 

 turned from side to side, four or five times in the day ; in other cases, 

 although it regains the use of the fore limbs, the hind ones remain 

 paralyzed, and the animal is consequently sold to the butcher. Again, 

 according to the severity of the attack, the case may terminate fatally 

 in six or eight hours, or it may linger on in a comatose condition for 

 several hours. If the patient gets into a relaxed condition, settles flat 

 down into the bed, and seems to lose all tone of the muscles, has the 

 hind legs wide apart, sits on the hocks, the points of which stick oat 

 below the rump bone, breathes heavily, puff's at the cheeks, drops the 

 lower jaw, and shows no sensation when the eyeball is touched, its 

 condition may be looked upon as hopeless. 



582. Sometimes gangrene takes place in one of the hind quarters of 

 the body, arising either from the rupture of a blood-vessel, or from 

 extreme congestion. The animal thus aff"ected may regain conscious- 

 ness, and even take food, but the breathing is very quick and laboured, 

 while the affected quarter swells up, and on being tapped by the fingers, 

 has a ratthng sound. Such cases almost always have a fatal 

 termination, though now and again an odd case survives the attack, 

 and so far recovers that it commences to feed, chew the cud, and seems 

 to do well for five or six days, after which it begins to cough, loses its 

 appetite, and finally dies from breaking up of the lungs, or what may 

 be termed acute consumption, caused by the congested state of the 

 vessels of the lungs during the coma, or from matters, that have been 

 horned in, falling into the windpipe and bronchial tubes. 



583. From experience, I would recommend in all cases of milk fever 

 that occur after the fourth calving, if the animal is in prime condition 

 and the attack severe, that the butcher be called in instead of the 

 veterinary surgeon. 



