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XIV. — Observations on the Disease of the Coii', commonly known 
as Dropping after Calving. By James Beart Simonds, 
Principal of the Royal Veterinary College. 
Under various names, such as Drop, Dropping after calving. 
Milk fever. Puerperal fever, Adynamic fever, Parturient apo- 
plexy, &c., a fatal disease attacking the cow shortly after or 
even occasionally before or at the time of parturition has long 
been recognised. 
In days gone by the pathology of the malady was very im- 
perfectly understood, and consequently the most conflicting 
opinions thereon were promulgated by writers on cattle patho- 
logy, as well as by practitioners of veterinary medicine. Even 
in the present day it cannot be said that a uniformity of opinion 
prevails, many persons still clinging to the views which were 
first advanced by the late Mr. Youatt, in his work on ' Cattle, 
their Breeds, Management, and Diseases ' (1834), viz. that 
" this disease is primarily inflammation of the womb or of the 
peritoneum, but that it afterwards assumes an intensity of 
character truly specific." With more correct views, however, 
other authors and practitioners now regard the disease as n07i- 
inflammatory, and as being dependent on functional derange- 
ment of the brain and nervous system. 
The Name. — I abandon all other names to give preference 
to Parturient apoplexy, notwithstanding that some of them may 
convey to the mind the existence of well-marked symptoms of 
the disease, such as Dropping after calving. The term Milk 
fever I also hold to be inappropriate ; but by no means so 
much so as PuerjKral fever, which strictly means " Child-bed 
fever," and consequently ought never to have been used in con- 
nection with parturition of the cow. Like dropping after calving. 
Adynamic fever* — loss of power associated with fever — points to 
the inability of the animal to rise ; but beyond this we learn 
at a cost not mucli exceeding that of ordinary haymaking in average weather, the 
last stages of the process can, in a difBcult season, be accomplished artificially with 
economy and success. Such a te stimony as that of Mr. Roddick, of Quintain Hill, 
"Waltham Abbey, certainly deserves attention : " Nineteen loads of damaged hay, 
■which would otherwise have been useless, were rendered fit for stacking at the 
rate of 2j loads per hour. I realized COZ. or IQl. by the day and a-half use of the 
hay dryer." Mr. Ainsworth, of Smithclls Hall, Bolton, also writes: "I have 
saved a Dutch barnful of hay during rain and without any roof over the 
maeliine." We are none of us disposed to make permanent costly preparation 
against what is only an exceptional disaster ; but on the home and central farms 
of an estate, and on large farms anywhere, and among the plant of those contract 
men whose services for threshing, steam-ploughing, drilling, &c., are in most 
districts to be hired, it seems no longer doubtful that Mr. Gibbs's hay and corn 
dryer should find a place. 
* In another part of this Essay I shall speak of Adynamic fever in connection 
with an animal's incapability to rise when pregnant. 
