PARTURITION FEVER, 



405 



notice the appearance of lesions produced by a persistent decubitus. 

 At that period the weakness, the insensibility, and stupefaction give 

 to this affection a great similarity to the paresis of parturition, 

 from which it is only distinguished by the high temperature, the 

 local inflammatory alterations, and the absence of ocular, œsopha- 

 geal, or laryngeal paralysis, etc. 



The disease may run three different courses: 1. The preceding 

 symptoms increase in intensity, and death, which is announced by 

 an abundant diarrhea, ordinarily occurs on the third or fourth day, 

 but sometimes on the fifth or sixth ; more rarely it is apoplectiform, 

 and then occurs within twenty- four or forty-eight hours. 2. The 

 inflammatory phenomena as well as the fever disappear, and com- 

 plete cure takes place from the eighth to the fourteenth day. 3. The 

 affection passes into a chronic state. When this latter termination 

 takes place the emaciation is seen to become gradually accentuated, 

 also the exhaustion, cachexia, marasmus, and hectic fever. Chronic 

 endometritis is accompanied by a purulent discharge and leads to 

 sterility, or is complicated by metastases in the lung, the joints, or 

 elsewhere, and by chronic nephritis, with their usual symptomatic 

 complications. If the animal organism is resistant, these metastatic 

 inflammations may be produced several times — they return at vari- 

 able intervals. When the disease has lasted for some time the 

 " hemorrhagic diathesis appears ; it is marked by hematuria, 

 hemoptysis, enterorrhagia, etc. We have several times seen a 

 considerable number of ecchymoses upon the pituitary, as in 

 petechial fever of the horse. Contamine has related similar ob- 

 servations. 



The mortality from puerperal septicemia is from 50 to 70 per 

 cent. 



Symptoms of parturition fever in the sow. In this 

 animal the observed symptoms are rather related to the paralytic 

 form of parturition fever of the cow than to puerperal septicemia. 

 The disease consists probably of a complicated poisoning from 

 septic infection, but it is generally benign. It is found most fre- 

 quently in the half-bred English races and in subjects which are in 

 a well-fed condition. As a rule, it appears after an easy parturition 

 and when the foetal membranes are not eliminated for several days. 

 According to Harz, it is marked by the following symptoms : the 

 appetite is lessened, the lacteal secretion is exhausted ; the gait is 

 uncertain and staggering, and the animals lie down frequently and 



