S o2 SURGICAL DISEASES. 



ascribe the decidedly augmented power of the organ to the stimu- 

 lus of the ergot, for no other means were resorted to in order to • 

 procure the desired effect. Its action, too, is prompt. "Within 

 ten minutes of the administration of a second or third dose, when 

 nature has been nearly exhausted, the parturition has been safely 



effected.' 



" Puerperal Fits. — Nature proportions the power and resources 

 of the mother to the wants of her offspring. In her wild undomes- 

 ticated state she is able to suckle her progeny to the full time ; 

 but, in the artificial state in which we have placed her, we shorten 

 the interval between each period of parturition, we increase the 

 number of her young ones at each birth, we diminish her natural 

 powers of affording them nutriment, and we give her a degree of 

 irritability which renders her whole system liable to be excited 

 and deranged by causes that would otherwise be harmless : there- 

 fore it happens that, when the petted bitch is permitted to suckle 

 the whole of her litter, her supply of nutriment soon becomes 

 exhausted, and the continued drain upon her produces a great 

 degree of irritability. She gets rapidly thin ; she staggers, is half- 

 unconscious, neglects her puppies, and suddenly falls into a fit of 

 a very peculiar character. It begins with, and is sometimes con^ 

 fined to, the respiratory apparatus : she lies on her side and pants 

 violently, and the sound of her laboured breathing may be heard 

 at the distance of twenty yards. Sometimes spasms steal over 

 her limbs ; at other times the diaphragm and respiratory muscles 

 alone are convulsed. In a few hours she is certainly lost ; or, if 

 there are moments of remission, they are speedily succeeded by 

 increased heavings. 



"The practitioner unaccustomed to this fearful state of excita- 

 tion, and forgetful or unaware of its cause, proceeds to bleed her, 

 and. he seals her fate. Although one system is thus convulsively 



