44 



Scientific Proceedings (47). 



33 (642) 



The toxic character of the colostrum in parturient paresis. 



By JOSEPH H. KASTLE and DANIEL J. HEALY. 



[From the Laboratory of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment 



Station.] 



Parturient paresis is preeminently a disease of plethoric heavy 

 milking breeds of cows, and of those individuals which give the 

 greatest yield of milk. Among the prime and immediate causes 

 of the disease are parturition, a permanent or transient plethoric 

 condition of the blood vessels, with corresponding increase of 

 pressure on the nerve centers of the brain. The phenomenal 

 trophic and secreting activity of the udder of the heavy milker 

 and intense physiological activity of the mammary glands resulting 

 in the sudden rise and absorption into the circulation of leuco- 

 maines or toxic alkaloids of the cells of the mammae. These ac- 

 cording to Law 1 are the principal causes operating to bring on an 

 attack of this disease. In the present state of our knowledge it is 

 of little moment whether we call the substances, other than milk, 

 resulting from the sudden disintegrative changes in the udder at 

 or about the time of parturition, leucomaines, alkaloids, toxins, 

 or what not. It seems reasonably certain, however, that there is 

 no gland of the size and physiological activity of the udder of a 

 heavy milking cow, but what must contribute very largely and 

 sometimes malignantly to the internal secretions of the animal. 



The question, therefore, immediately before us in the study of 

 parturient paresis and of eclampsia in the woman is to determine 

 experimentally whether the udder and the breast, respectively, do 

 under these acutely toxic conditions actually secrete poisonous 

 substances, which if not quickly eliminated or prevented from 

 entering the circulation might be held responsible for these 

 diseases. 



It therefore occurred to one of us, Kastle, 2 to test the conduct 



'"Text-book of Veterinary Medicine," 2d ed. (1905), Vol. 3, pp. 301-317 

 Ithaca, N. Y. 



2 On the day after our three papers on parturient paresis and eclampsia were 

 mailed to the editor of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Chicago, viz., on February 

 13, 1912, Dr. Surface called our attention to an abstract by Heifer of a paper by 

 Hoyois in the Berliner Tierarztliche Wochenschrift, October 5, 1911, No. 40, pp. 727- 



