SECTIOlSr III. 



DISEASES OF THE GENITAL ORGANS. 



PARTURITION FEVER: PUERPERAL FEVER: VITU- 

 LARY FEVER: SEPTICEMIA: PUERPERAL 

 ECLAMPSIA. 



Ancient and modern theories upon the nature of 

 TITULARY FEVER. Acute post-partum disease, which is observed 

 in all domestic species, and especially in the cow, have at all times 

 attracted the attention of veterinarians. They have been designated 

 by expressions which are as numerous as they are various : vitulari/ 

 fever, milk fever, parturition fever, puerperal fever ; inflammatory^ 

 septicemic, nervous, paralytic, and tympanic forms of vitulary fever i 

 septicemia, puerperal eclampsia, etc. But the symptons mentioned 

 by various authors are far from being uniform; the symptomatic 

 characters assigned to vitnlary fever are, on the contrary, very 

 complex and polymorphic ; sometimes the morbid phenomena are 

 especially characterized by an intense fever, at other times by general 

 paralysis, and it is not rare to observe cases in which these domi- 

 nating phenomena are associated. Hering dwells upon this point : 

 the monographs of various authors, he says, " seem to refer to so 

 many different diseases.'^ Thus very divergent opinions have been 

 advanced upon the nature and significance of the phenomena pro- 

 duced by these affections. Most authors recognize several varieties 

 of vitulary fever (the inflammatory, septicemic, and nervous or para- 

 lytic forms). Others, and among them Spinola, describe a principal 

 form of this disease which is characterized by paralysis ; as to the 

 forms grouped under the collective name of inflammatory forms 

 of vitulary fever,'' they clearly have to be separated from true vit- 

 ulary fever and classified among ^' diseases of the uterus." 



In later times writers have generally indorsed Franck's theory^ 

 There is a tendency to admit two forms which differ from vitulary 

 (396) 



