PARTURIENT APOPLEXY— PUERrERAL COLLAPSE. G45 



sixth, 3 after the eighth. After the third Calf, or even previous to its 

 birth, dairy-keepers are averse to purchasing the bettor-bred milch Cows, 



Temperature is supposed to influence the production of the disease, 

 and especially exposure to cold. The suppression of the cutaneous 

 functions, and the determination of the blood from the surface of the 

 body to the internal organs, nmst favour congestion of these organs. 

 Therefore it is that currents of cold air, lying on cold ground, and cold 

 fluids ingested innnediately after parturition, have been looked upon as 

 powerful occasional causes. Sanson thinks that the sudden expulsion 

 of the blood so abundantly contained in the uterine mucous membrane 

 and cotyledons — and which should bo only slowly diffused — forces that 

 fluid into the neighbouring vessels, and surcharges them beyond measure; 

 while Ayrault is of opinion that the cold air, entering the uterine cavity 

 by its partially dilated os, drives the blood from the mucous membrane 

 into the other viscera, suddenly checks the lochial secretion, and thus 

 gives rise to the disease. This lochial secretion plays an important 

 part in the genesis of the malady, according to several authorities. 



Other writers suppose that the disease is more common during warm 

 than cold seasons. In fact, it prevails in the most diverse temperatures, 

 and it is as serious in cold as in warm w^eather. Sometimes the number 

 of cases is very great, without any reference to heat or cold; then almost 

 suddenly they subside, and no more outbreaks occur for some time. 

 This has led to the supposition, again, that it depends for its develop- 

 ment on a peculiar condition or epizootic constitution of the atmosphere, 

 but in what this consists no one has attempted to explain. K()hne says: 

 " It is certain that when one of these periods of vitulary fever prevails, 

 a change of atmosphere has occurred or is about to take place, though 

 the converse is not true — for when an atmospheric change takes place 

 we cannot predict an invasion of this fever. But if it happens that 

 several cases of the malady follow each other immediately during a 

 certain atmospheric constitution, we may assuredly predict a change in 

 the weather. This change most frequently consists in a transition from 

 settled to rainy weather, bringing about a diminution in the barometric 

 pressure." 



Some veterinarians have ascribed the disease mainly to infection — 

 assimilating the puerperal fever of woman to the parturient processes in 

 the Cow, but of this there is little evidence indeed ; wliile others, as 

 already mentioned, imagine that it is merely a nervous form of parturient 

 fever, and due to blood-poisoning. 



Giinther, very many years ago, and a few others more recently, fancied 

 it was produced by a moral infiiiencc — the removal of the Calf soon after 

 birth, which distressed the Cow. But it was forgotten that tlie malady 

 sometimes occurs when the Calf is with the Cow, and sucking ; and 

 that other creatures in which the moral faculties are more highly 

 developed, and which exhibit great anxiety and distress on being 

 deprived of their progeny, do not suffer from parturient apoplexy. 

 Besides, the disease is no more prevalent in those countries or districts 

 where the Calves are taken away from the Cows at an early period, 

 than where they arc allowed to remain with them. 



Others also have attributed the occurrence of the disorder to mental 

 excitement during the act of parturition ; but surely this excitement 

 must be greater with the first Calf or with the second — when the 

 disease seldom appears — than with the third, fourth, or fifth Calf, when 

 it is so frequent. Not only this, but it is a notorious fact that parturient 



