PARTURITION FEVER. 



411 



as 120. Concerning the hyperthermia, authors give contradictory 

 indications ; the greatest number, with Franck, consider as a char- 

 acteristic symptom of septic parturition fever the regular decrease 

 - of the temperature, which may fall to 35° and even below. During 

 the first few days we have almost constantly found a temperature 

 of 39° to 40° C, In eight cases very carefully observed from a 

 thermometric point of view, Engel-Weiugarten^ found in seven 

 instances a temperature of 39.1° to 40°; in three of these cases 

 the disease was only one day old, in three others it had already set 

 in for forty-eight hours, in the last it was the fourth day of the 

 trouble. It seems that in paresis of parturition the same thermo- 

 metric peculiarities are observed as in the nervous form of dis- 

 temper of dogs (Staupe) : the temperature, high at the start, falls 

 below the normal ; this last phenomenon is attributed to the loss 

 of a greater quantity of heat (vascular paralysis) and to the re- 

 duction of calorification in the paralyzed muscles. Paresis of par- 

 turition is never accompanied by any considerable hyperthermia; 

 when the temperature rises above 40° to 41° it indicates complica- 

 tions of septic infection. 



Course. The disease, as a rule, advances rapidly ; its termina- 

 tion is sometimes observed at the end of twelve to eighteen days. 

 When a cure is going to occur, improvement becomes marked as 

 early as the second or third day : the animals move about, some- 

 times they succeed in resuming the standing position ; the appetite, 

 defecation, micturition, and lacteal secretion reappear successively; 

 the temperature rises again and is distributed regularly. Recovery 

 is complete at the end of two to five days ; it is rare to see paresis 

 of the hind quarters persist. 



When the end is to be fatal, we observe the symptoms of par- 

 alysis of the heart and brain, anxiety, agitation, convulsions ; death 

 supervenes in one to three days. Sometimes it is immediately pre- 

 ceded by a profuse diarrhea. We may observe apoplectiform 

 death, which occurs shortly after the start of the affection. Finally, 

 the condition is often complicated by a pneumonia caused by foreign 

 bodies (food or therapeutic agents which have ^* gone the wrong 

 way"). This pneumonia, the duration of which is from four to six 

 days, invariably ends in death. 



The toxic or paralytic form of vitulary fever produces an average 



1 Engel-Wemgarten (communication). 



