934 Veterinary Obstetrics 



It is quite unnecessary to suggest that the animal be well 

 bedded and otherwise made comfortable. 



The practitioner should be on his guard against the dangers 

 of moving the recumbent animal from place to place. If the 

 patient has fallen in a bad situation, out of doors or elsewhere, 

 it may appear desirable that she should be conveyed to a stable 

 or other suitable place for handling. In bringing about this 

 transfer it is well-nigh unavoidable that she be placed in lateral 

 recumbency, and that she must undergo a form of handling which 

 will strongly tend to cause the regurgitation and inhalation of 

 some of the contents of the rumen. 



It is therefore best, in all cases, to make the patient comfort- 

 able, if possible, where she falls. Abundant bedding, blankets 

 if the weather is cold, or an improvised tent or shed if the weather 

 is hot or rainy, usually suffices as well as a stable and avoids the 

 danger of transfer. When moving the recumbent animal is im- 

 perative, she should be kept on her chest until all is in readi- 

 ness, the transfer then made promptly, and the patient quickly 

 replaced upon her sternum. 



When the practitioner is called to attend a case of parturient 

 paresis, he should rigidly abstain from drenching the patient, 

 and carefully enquire, before he takes charge, if any drugs or 

 medicines have been given by the mouth. If cows suffering 

 from parturient paresis have been drenched, the mortality is 

 exceedingly high, because portions of the drench usually pass 

 down the trachea into the lungs. It does not matter at what 

 stage of the disease the attempt to drench the animal occurs. 

 While she is still upon her feet, and merely beginning to stagger, 

 she is nevertheless very liable to become strangled. There appears 

 to be from the first an anaesthesia or paresis of the larynx and 

 other parts, which prevents coughing or any other signs of 

 strangling. If the animal has received a drench, especially one 

 which would be highly irritant to the lungs or could not be ab- 

 sorbed from the respiratory mucous membrane, an unfavorable 

 prognosis should at once be given, and the handling begun with 

 a definite understanding that the animal will probably die from 

 inhalation pneumonia as a result of the drench. 



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*TH ii^ >jw ^ J|^ 



The history of the origin of the present plan for handling 

 parturient paresis dates back to the investigations of Schmidt of 



