METRITIS, METRO-PERITONITIS, AND PARTl'lUKXT F El' Eli. 629 



varies considerably, according to circumstances — amounting sometimes 

 to many gallons. 



The uterus itself is never contracted as in the normal condition, and 

 it is often two or three times larger than it ought to be. 



The walls of the organ are thickened, friable, softened, intensely red, 

 and infiltrated with sanguinolent serosity, inflammatory products, and 

 pus globules. The mucous membrane is thickened, of a dirty-brown 

 or dark-green tint, livid, softened, ecchymosed in places, and covered 

 here and there with diphtheritic or fibrinous exudates and blood-clots, 

 the latter being chielly found — in the Cow — at the base of the coty- 

 ledons, which are, with the exudates and clots, in process of putre- 

 faction, and are gray, pulpy, and almost detached. Sometimes portions 

 of decomposed fcctal membranes yet remain attached to the cotyledons ; 

 and there are here and there gangrenous eschars, in the form of green 

 or grayish spongy masses of a diphtheritic nature, which are in process 

 of softening and dissolution. In all these alterations — which are 

 usually very notable in the cornu that contained the foetus — there are 

 the characteristic features of Endometritis scptica. 



It is seldom indeed that the puerpei'al or septic inflammation is 

 limited to the mucous membrane. Nearly always it extends to the 

 submucous connective tissue (Metritis jyf'lcgmonosa), which is infiltrated 

 with an a^dematous transudation ; or it becomes the seat of acute 

 inflammatory (t-dema, in which the tissue swells, becomes tumid, and 

 its interstices tilled with fluid, small cells, and a gelatinous, semi-solid 

 material The muscular tissue is swollen and softened, and a dark 

 fluid flows from it. 



The subperitoneal connective tissue of the uterus may suffer in like 

 manner, and undergo necrotic softening and putrefaction ; while the 

 serous membrane itself becomes inflamed (Metro-peritonitis). 



When this takes place, the abdominal cavity contains a quantity of 

 reddish, turbid, sanious serosity, in which are flakes of lymph. The 

 lining membrane of this cavity, and especially that covering the uterus, 

 is highly inflamed, and its surface is covered with pseudo-membranous 

 layers of fibrin ; while adhesion may have taken place between the 

 different organs it covers. In some cases the inflammation of the peri- 

 toneum is not so difluse, and is more or less limited to the uterus and 

 organs immediately adjacent. 



In other cases, again, the phlegmonous inflammation extends to the 

 pelvic connective tissue (raranictritis), and then there is diffuse acute 

 cedeina, inflltration with pus, or even abscesses. 



Indeed, in the uterine connective tissue there may be, in different 

 parts, active cell proliferation and abscesses, and if the animal chances 

 to live beyond a certain period, these terminate in caseous inspissation, 

 or even perforation into the abdominal cavity. 



A very important pathological lesion, and one which is not infre- 

 quently noted in parametritis, is thrombosis of the veins and lymphatics. 

 Thrombosis of the uterine veins has been observed in animals — solid, 

 white, or yellowish thrombi adiiering to the internal surface of the 

 vessels, and extending towards the larger venous trunks — even as far 

 as the posterior vena cava. Sometimes the breaking-up of these 

 thrombi causes relapse, and embolic pyaemia of the \un<j,s or neighbour- 

 ing organs. When septic infection does not occur, bruising of the soft 

 parts during diflicult parturition may give rise to thrombosis of the 

 veins, with secondary pyaemia. This may explain the occurrence of 



