PARTURIENT APOPLEXY— PUERPERAL COLLAPSE. 647 



the brain or spinal cord, or their envelopes ; while others have found 

 well-marked and important lesions. These varied from venous con- 

 gestion to oedema, ana)mia, and exudation. Violet, in addition to 

 finding' a (juantity of foul-smellin;^' reddish lluid in the uterus (which 

 was not intlamed), observed congestion of the pia mater with very dark 

 blood ; there was also congestion of the vessels in the brain tissue, and 

 a long clot in the great vena Galcni. In other instances a similar con- 

 dition was observed ; but in all the spinal cord appeared to bo healthy. 

 Bragard and others have constantly found injection of the brain and 

 its meninges. Saake and Festal have also witnessed congestion of the 

 vessels of the encephalon, sub-arachnoideal effusion, extravasation, and 

 blood-clots on the surface of the cerebrum and cerebellum. Others 

 have seen serous effusion in the lateral ventricles and traces of spinal 

 meningitis ; while Binx has observed sanguineous extravasation and 

 gelatinous matter at the origin of the sympathetic nerve, and Fabry 

 blood-clots at the base of the brain, with serum in the cavity of the 

 arachnoid. 



In one instance Schaack met with a clot, three-fourths of a line in 

 thickness, covering the left side of the medulla oljlongata, and serous 

 effusion into the lateral ventricles ; and in another instance an in- 

 flammatory exudate on the right side of the cerebellum. Harms has 

 found, in many cases, air in the cerebral bloodvessels ; and Noquet 

 and others have reported alterations in the spinal cord, which was 

 reddened, congested, more rarely covered with exudate — chiefly in its 

 lumbar portion, and sometimes the sciatic plexus of uerves has been 

 involved. 



Nahire. 



With regard to the nature or efTicient cause of the disease, thei-e has 

 been a great diversity of opinion, and even now the most eminent 

 veterinary authorities are not at all agreed as to its pathology. With 

 some it is a fever — a nervous or paralytic form of parturient fever — 

 closely allied to the puerperal fever of woman, and due to blood- 

 poisoning, the two forms only differing in degree. But it should be 

 remarked that in this Bovine malady there is no fever; that the 

 temperature is generally below the normal standard ; and that recovery 

 is often rapid, if not sudden. 



Other writers have imagined it is a grave form of gastric fever, 

 because there is constipation, and imi)action of the digestive organs 

 with hard dry food. But such impaction nuiy occur at any time, and 

 it does not give rise to the symptoms of parturient collapse, neither 

 does it cause death so rapidly. 



The more prevalent opinions as to the essence of the disorder may 

 be classed under live heads : 1. Ilyperaimia of the nerve-centres ; 

 2. Anirmia of the nerve-centres ; 3. Derangement or paralysis of the 

 nerv'e-centres ; 4. Alterations in the constituents of the blood ; 5. The 

 presence of something abnormal in the blood that leads to the develop- 

 ment of the symptoms and lesions observed. 



1. HVPER.EMIA OF THE Nerve-Centres. — Sincc 1847, when Festal 

 read a memoir before the Central Veterinary Society of France on 

 this disease, the opinion has been held by a large number of veterinary 

 authorities that it is due to plethora, and consequent congestion or 

 apoplexy of the nen-e-centres. Festal found blood-clots beneath the 



