•680 PATHOLOGY OF PARTURITION. 



character ; at other times it is putrescent and foetid. Microscopically, 

 it is found to be composed of particles of solidified casein, a few fat 

 globules, epithelium from the milk vesicles and ducts, but more espe- 

 cially pus and red blood-corpuscles ; sometimes bacteria and micrococci 

 are noticed in considerable numbers. When abscess forms and ulcera- 

 tion takes place, bundles of fibres of elastic tissue are often discovered 

 in this fluid. Chemically, it contains little casein, milk, sugar, or fat, 

 but much v^ater and albumin. 



The progress of the disease is very rapid — more so than in either of 

 the other forms ; in twenty-four, thirty-six, or forty-eight hours — some- 

 times even in less than the first-named period — the disease has reached 

 its greatest intensity. The attack is generally very sudden — the animal 

 being apparently quite well when left for the night, and perhaps pre- 

 senting all the symptoms described when seen again next morning. 

 When it has reached its culminating point, it may remain stationary 

 for two, three, or four days before passing to one of its ordinary termi- 

 nations. Towards the third or fourth day the vicinity of the gland 

 becomes oedematous, and this oedema may extend to beneath the chest 

 and as high as the vulva — in the Mare, to the inside of the thighs and 

 •down the hind-legs. 



Course and Terminations. 



The course and terminations of mammitis are matters of much im- 

 portance. It rapidly passes through its different phases until the 

 fourth, rarely until the sixth day, when it terminates either by resolu- 

 tion — which seldom indeed occurs without prompt treatment ; atrophy ; 

 induration ; snpijuration ; gangrene; or even the death of the animal. 



Eesolution is, of course, by far the most favourable termination. In 

 the parenchymatous form it can rarely be rendered complete, even by 

 the most rational and vigorous treatment, after the second or third 

 day ; in the phlegmonous form it may occur so late as the fourth to the 

 sixth day, but seldom after the eighth. It is marked by a gradual 

 diminution in the intensity of the symptoms — general and local, and 

 particularly in the pain, which first disappears, then the tumefaction 

 and induration. 



Saint- Cyr lays much stress on the decrease in density, with regard 

 to prognosis. If it persists beyond the time stated above — if after 

 forty-eight hours in parenchymatous mammitis, or six days in the 

 phlegmonous form, the gland has not, to any marked extent, lost some- 

 thing of its woody hardness, there is great reason to fear that resolution 

 will not be complete, and that some portions will remain indurated, or 

 that the mass will become either partially or totally atrophied. 



Though the subsidence of the fever and decrease of the swelling are 

 in themselves favourable signs, yet they may be deceptive with regard 

 to thorough resolution ; and it must be recognised as more favourable 

 when the tissue of the gland resumes its softness and suppleness, rather 

 than when the swelling subsides rapidly and the hardness remains but 

 little altered. 



It is scarcely necessary to mention that the return of the normal 

 secretion to the affected gland is a most favourable sign, though this 

 does not occur very rapidly. For several days^ — from ten to twenty, or 

 even more — the fluid obtained from the teat of the affected quarter re- 

 mains watery, or rather serous and curdled ; it contains numerous colo- 

 strum cells, and is more albuminous than caseous — coagulating readily 



