ON PU KKPJ.iR.AL FKVKK IN Till: COW. * 
491 
these viscera healthy, but detecting morbid appearances in the 
brain, or some other part of the nervous system alone. In like 
manner we find one practitioner combating the disease with sti- 
mulants, while another advises powerful depletive measures. 
Now, although, as just stated, various diseases, common also 
to other occasions, may occur after calving, each presenting symp- 
toms characteristic of its nature and seat, yet one of the most fre- 
quent is an affection occurring only at this particular juncture, 
which, although likewise called puerperal fever, I consider to 
exist in the nervous system. In support of this, I shall endeavour 
to account for its several symptoms upon recognized physiological 
and pathological conditions ; still, being myself unprepared to sub- 
stitute any other name, I shall be compelled to adopt it under these 
qualifications. 
As before noticed, the symptoms are suddenly developed and 
decisive in character, occurring within three days of calving or 
often within twenty-four hours of that process, as immediately on 
the establishment of reaction after collapse, which, to a greater or 
less extent, according to constitutional peculiarities, accompanies 
ordinary cases of parturition. In some cases of puerperal fever 
all symptoms, constituting various phases of the disease, have 
been developed within six hours of their earliest appearance. 
The first grounds for apprehension arise from a less quantity of 
milk being yielded than is natural — an evident impairment of ap- 
petite, and a stronger, although not much more accelerated, pulse 
than usual after calving. The conjunctival and vaginal mem- 
branes are injected, and the horns and mouth are hot, with a 
glistening appearance in the eyes. 
Such slight deviation from health can scarcely be called actual 
disease — in fact, can hardly be detected as a state exceeding in 
character the usual stage of reaction, and almost invariably eludes 
the vigilance of those in ordinary attendance upon cattle, whom 
experience has not qualified with more than usual discrimination, 
as it merely consists in a febrile state of the system, always short, 
immediately preceding the establishment of disease, and soon to 
be manifested by unequivocal symptoms. 
. The cow entirely refuses its food, and respires more quickly; 
the pulse, however, seldom rises above 60, but is full, and some- 
times oppressed. There is little milk secreted, and the evacu- 
ations are scanty. We may sometimes observe a few impatient 
tosses of the head — a peculiar expression of distress, something 
approaching to madness. The symptoms now more directly inti- 
mating the forthcoming disease are a remarkable change in the 
eyes, which have assumed a light leaden hue, and involuntary 
swerving motion of the body, and constant shifting of the feet to 
