ARTHIUTIS. 721 



per cent, of the cases) during the three weeks succeeding birth. Of tho 

 forty Foals above alluded to, twenty were ill within the lirst eight days, 

 ten in fifteen days, and the others in the fourth or sixth week. The 

 period of the malady was, of course, related to the foaling season — 

 April, May, and June. After an attentive study of the symptom and 

 making post /«o/-/t'»i examinations, Bollinger came to the conclusion that 

 there is a complete analogy between the arthritis of Foals — particularly 

 in the lesions observed — and the results noticed as a consequence of 

 omphalitis in infants. In his opinion, this joint disease, with its com- 

 plications, is due to metastatic pyasmia, which has its point of departure 

 in the purulent umphalo-phlebitis described in the preceding section of 

 this work. 



In a more recent publication, Bollinger returns to this subject ; and 

 after alluding to his former opinion, founded on literary studies and 

 clinical observations, that the lameness or disease of the joints which 

 attacks Foals and Calves during the first weeks after birth, are due to 

 l)rimary alterations in the apparatus of the circulation, viz.— inflamma- 

 tion of the umbilicus and umbilical vessels, he gives further evidence in 

 support of this supposition. The autopsies of the Calves which form 

 tlie subject of his second communication, will be noticed hereafter; but it 

 may be mentioned that they afford indubitable evidence of the existence 

 of purulent omphalo-phlebitis and its consequences. As in Foals, so in 

 Calves, he traces the origin of joint disease to violent inflanmiation of 

 the umbilical veins. He notes that in Calves — which have a ductus 

 ccnosus Arantii and Foals have not — the direct opening of the vessels 

 into the posterior vena cava, as well as the general implication of the 

 latter, causes a proportionately larger number of cases in them than in 

 Foals. The influences at work in the production of omphalitis have 

 been enumerated ; but Bollinger lays great stress on the want of care, 

 which is, as a rule, bestowed on the umbilical cord in newly-born 

 animals, and compares this neglect with the scrupulous attention paid 

 to that of infants, which is severed and bandaged immediately after 

 birth ; while the former have to lie with an open wound in all kinds of 

 filth, and are thus readily exposed to inoculation witli poisonous or 

 injurious matters, which cannot be excluded even from stables built 

 specially for the purpose, and kept thoroughly clean. If the navel 

 wound of an infant were exposed to the filth which young Foals and 

 Calves have to lie in, it would be quite as liable to blood-poisoning as 

 animals, and to the consequent afifection of the joints. 



Bollinger contests the influence of food in the production of the 

 disease, as strong, no less than weak, animals are attacked; it also 

 appears when every kind of diet is given to the parent. 



He also denies that it is produced by chills, and attributes its advent 

 chiefly to pyajmic or septic infection. He compares the enzootic appear- 

 ances of joint lameness with the endemic outbreaks of pya}mia and 

 septicaemia (or puerperal fever), and points out that the only real 

 difference between man and beast lies in the simultaneous appearance 

 of puerperal fever epidemics with pyaemia in infants. One point is 

 certain, he adds, and that is that there is a physiological and anatomical 

 difTerence between woman and the domestic animals. The anatomical 

 structure of the placenta and its villi, and its relations with the placenta 

 inatcrna, are of such a nature in animals as to prevent (on the normal 

 detachment of the placenta) any rupture of bloodvessels, and conse- 

 -quent haemorrhage. In other words, if deUvery has been successfully 



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