98 HEALTH AND DISEASE 



Symptoms. It is not always possible to distinguish at first between 

 metritis and parturient fever and to say at what time septic influences 

 commence, as both are accompanied with suddenly increased temperature; 

 neither is the intensity of the febrile symptoms a particular guide, for 

 metritis and septic poisoning alike vary in degree, and may be severe and 

 fatal or mild and transient. 



Uterine inflammation or parturient fever may supervene at an early 

 period, commonly between the second and eighth day after parturition ; but 

 much later periods are on record in mares, these animals differing from 

 other domesticated species in the greater length of time after which septic 

 troubles may commence. All may for a time have gone well with the 

 mare, lactation be satisfactory, the maternal instinct fully exercised, and 

 no apparent reason exist for apprehension, yet a sudden and severe rigor 

 may appear accompanied by a rise of two or more degrees of temperature 

 in a few hours. Then follows dulness, loss of appetite, a small, hard, quick 

 pulse, suppression of milk, reduction in the size of the mammary gland, 

 indicating a grave condition and shortly to be followed by shallow breath- 

 ing, a hot and pasty state of the mouth, deep redness of the membranes of 

 the eyes and nose with coldness or variability of the ears and extremities. 

 Abdominal pain, simulating colic, with its better-known symptoms of strik- 

 ing at the belly, looking round at the flanks, stamping the feet, getting up 

 and down, whisking the tail, accompanied with expulsive efforts similar to ' 

 those known as "after-pains", which all animals involuntarily make in 

 ridding themselves of the placental membranes. Pain, too, is apparent in 

 the hind limbs, taking the form of cramp and a lameness that is paralytic 

 in character. Where parturient fever exists apart from metritic inflamma- 

 tion there is a greater disposition to seek a recumbent posture, the latter 

 being found too painful when an inflamed uterus receives pressure from the 

 abdomen resting on the ground. 



Where parturient fever is a sequel to metritis there will be swelling of 

 the vulva and a discharge from the vagina varying in character from a 

 thin serous fluid of pale straw colour to a purplish or chocolate hue. While 

 this is a common symptom it is not necessarily present in those cases where 

 infection has taken place at some other part than the womb. Where fever 

 is accompanied with metritis there is arching of the back in addition to a 

 persistent maintenance of the standing posture, which is only relinquished 

 at the approach of death. With metro-peritonitis there is invariably more 

 or less effusion of serous fluid into the abdominal cavity. If abundant, 

 the movement of fluid is perceptible when hands are placed on opposite 

 sides of the flank and alternately and suddenly compressed. 



Three or four, at the most five or six, days will witness the termination 



