DISEASES OF HORSES AND CATTLE. 351 



the period of parturition, when the act is rapidly 

 accomplished, a large excess of blood is thrown 

 upon the system. The effect is the same as when 

 a flux of some standing is suddenly checked; either 

 some of the excretory organs exert their power of 

 vicarious actions, or a sudden increase of blood 

 pressure takes place. This is the view that is usu- 

 ally taken, but I think it is a wrong one, as in 

 every cow T , at the time of parturition, there is this 

 excess of blood thrown back upon the system, but 

 nature has provided for this. It is quite another 

 thing in the case of the flux; that was checked by 

 administering powerful astringents, which is act- 

 ing contrary to nature. Still another thinks that 

 it is such a derangement of the sympathetic nerv- 

 ous system as seldom to admit of recovery until 

 (finally) apoplectic lesions result. The first part 

 of the above, I think, is nearest to the point, but 

 the latter part is the stumbling block over which 

 nearly all fall — that is in believing the nervous de- 

 rangement causes apoplexy. When I commenced 

 practice, some twenty-five years ago, I followed 

 the teaching I have just mentioned, and my milk 

 fever patients nearly all died. This state of af- 

 fairs provoked me very much. I made a number of 

 post-mortem examinations of the animals that had 

 died of the disease, and failed to find the apoplec- 

 tic lesion described. Of course I found redness 

 and some fullness of the blood vessels, but no more 

 than one would find in making a post-mortem ex- 

 amination of animals dying of other diseases not 

 apoplectic. I concluded from this that the dis- 



