ON PUERPERAL FEVER IN THE COW. 
497 
tines often contain hard excrement. The stomachs present struc- 
turally a healthy appearance, but the contents of the third stomach 
are mostly hard. This hardness of food and faeces is by no means 
always present, and holds at all times a close relation to the dura- 
tion of disease. 
The uterus is large or small, according to the period elapsed 
since parturition. 
If a day or two have passed, it will be well contracted, provided 
the placenta is expelled, which is not always the case. Its mu- 
cous coat and muscular tissue under the former state exhibit no 
greater amount of vascularity than usual on those occasions. The 
bladder is mostly full, provided no evacuation has been effected 
mechanically, or at death, during the general relaxation of all 
sphincters. I have on one or two occasions seen an inflamma- 
tory blush exist on the mucous surface of the bladder, and also ex- 
tended slightly to its peritoneal covering ; but in these the organ 
was much distended. The liver is usually congested, and the gall- 
bladder large. In the thoracic cavity there is also an absence of 
actual disease. The lungs are in most cases congested, which is 
caused by the right ventricle of the heart continuing to force blood 
therein, when, from an impaired state of respiratory action, they are 
incapable of accomplishing its return into the systemic circulation. 
The presence, during life, of symptoms previously detailed, 
and which I doubt not you have witnessed, together with an ab- 
sence, under post-mortem examinations, of actual abdominal or tho- 
racic disease, induced Mr. Friend, of Walsall, some years ago, to 
suppose that this affection existed in the nervous system. Since 
that period his opinion, as to its seat, has obtained support from 
many practitioners; and T am inclined to suppose the opposition 
thereto of others has arisen, as before stated, from a too indiscrimi- 
nate classification of other diseases occurring near parturition, 
under the common appellation of puerperal fever. 
Being, then, well acquainted with the healthy appearances and 
anatomy of the nervous system on other occasions, we should in 
these cases proceed carefully, and, immediately after death, to 
their examination ; for, if long delayed, there are various processes 
taking place sufficient to render our judgment and investigation 
fallacious, as increase in the sub-arachnoidean fluid, and softening of 
central substance. The cerebral and spinal centres should be ex- 
posed, together with their membranes, and, if possible, without any 
laceration of either. 
We sometimes find considerable injection of the dura mater 
enveloping both brain and spinal cord ; this, however, is not in- 
variable, and is always greatest under considerable pulmonary 
congestion. 
