398 



DISEASES OF THE GENITAL ORGANS. 



The expression " milk fever has singularly helped to confuse 

 the terminology of the fever of parturition. Some thought to 

 designate in this way the inflammatory form of the affection, the 

 others the paralytic form, and others again a disease differing in its 

 main features from both. Quite recently Flusser still persisted in 

 distinguishing simple milk fever from other forms of vitulary 

 fever. But this milk fever is certainly nothing but an inflamma- 

 tory affection of the mammary gland, accompanied by febrile symp- 

 toms ; it has, therefore, no relation with parturition fever. Besides, 

 in normal parturition the temperature is increased from J° to 1° ; 

 in the bitch we have found it 39.5° C. The expression, milk fever, 

 ought, therefore, to be dropped altogether. 



2. The theory of Harms, according to which vitulary fever 

 would be the result of the introduction of air into the bloodvessels 

 (aëremia) at the time of parturition, with consecutive cerebral 

 anemia, is too hypothetical, and too unlikely, to be accepted. The 

 gaseous globules found in the cerebral vessels are the result of 

 blood decomposition ; when the autopsy of the subjects which 

 succumb to vitulary fever is made immediately after death, it i& 

 not rare to find it wanting ; the paralytic form of vitulary fever is 

 usually observed after a relatively easy parturition, when the uterus 

 returns quickly to its former position, and its neck is closed rapidly; 

 finally, the veins of the uterine mucous membrane are the seat 

 of a positive pressure and not of a negative tension (absorbing 

 force). 



Again, how are the ante-partum cases of vitulary fever to be 

 explained, as well as those in which the affection is produced but 

 twelve hours or more after parturition ? 



3. The authors who have localized the disease in the lumbar 

 spinal cord (Friend and Garreau) have evidently confounded it 

 with paraplegia or paretic weakness of the hind quarters (festlie- 

 gen). The assimilation of vitulary fever to the typhoid diseases 

 (Kohn) does not even deserve any refutation. 



Criticism of Franck's theory upon the pathology of 

 PARALYTIC VITULARY FEVER. The division of vitulary fever 

 into the septicemic and paralytic forms must be considered as a 

 great advance attained in the domain of puerperal pathology. We 

 approve this conception fully. But Franck's theory of the patho- 

 genesis of the paralysis of parturition cannot withstand serious 

 discussion ; this complex disease cannot be explained by simple 



