Parturition Fever, Etc. 305 



to the first week after parturition, and its gravity is greater the 

 more nearly it is related to the parturient act. Cases occurring in 

 the first three days are usually fatal. The gravid uterus contains 

 a very large amount of circulating blood, and when the womb con- 

 tracts, the greater part of this is suddenly thrown upon the general 

 circulation, already plethoric to an undue extent. As yet the 

 mammae are congested and there is no free depletion through 

 that channel, so that there is a marked temporary plethora and 

 vascular tension, before the system can establish free elimination 

 and, as it were, strike a healthy balance. In this period of tran- 

 sient plethora there lies a source of great danger to . the general 

 system and, more particularly, to the brain. 



Emotional Excitement connected with the removal of the calf 

 is urged by Giinther, Jaumain, Felizet and others as a prominent 

 cause. This, however, must be rare, at the most; the disease 

 does not attack the primipara that should be most susceptible to 

 this influence, but the mature animal, at her third calving or 

 later when she is already well accustomed to this treatment ; it 

 supervenes so quickly on parturition in many cases, that there 

 was no opportunity for such emotion ; it occurs also in cows, the 

 calves of which have remained with them or have received no at- 

 tention from them. 



Absorption of Leucomaines from the Udder. At parturition the 

 trophic and secretory activity of the udder of the heavy milking, 

 plethoric cow is phenomenal, and with this extraordinary and 

 sudden rise in the circulation, and in cell growth and work there 

 is a corresponding increase in the leucomaines or toxic alkaloids 

 of the cells. If those alkaloids are promptly introduced in large 

 quantity into the general circulation, the ' highly susceptible 

 nerve centres at once succumb to the poison. This theory agrees 

 perfectly with the therapeutic developments of the last few years. 

 The Schmidt treatment, by injecting the teats with a quart of 

 water holding 100 to 200 grains of iodide of potassiuni in solution, 

 reduced the mortality from the disease from 70 per cent to 15 per 

 cent. Injections of other antiseptic solutions proved equally effec- 

 tive. So did a simple normal salt solution. Overfilling of the 

 udder with milk by putting off the first milking for, 24 hours 

 after calving virtually put a stop to cases of the disease. The 

 filling of each teat and quarter of the udder to repletion with 

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