ON PUERPERAL FEVER IN THE COW. 
499 
perfect action in all is essential to a healthy maintenance of life. 
Although 1 doubt not your perfect acquaintance with the phy- 
siology of each, I will briefly recapitulate them, as they may ex- 
plain more clearly the view I take of the disease in question. 
The cerebral is that division comprising every part of the ner- 
vous system relative to sensation, volition, and special sense. Its 
centre is the cerebrum and cerebellum, to which nerves of sensa- 
tion proceed from the organs of special sense, external surface, and 
other sensitive parts, and from which also proceed voluntary nerves, 
pursuing a similar but retrograde direction, forming in the spinal cord 
its anterior columns, as those of sensation form its posterior ones. 
When the cerebrum is irritated, delirium ensues ; when it is com- 
pressed, coma supervenes ; when lacerated, paralysis occurs. 
Should other symptoms than these exist, in conjunction with ence- 
phalic disease, they arise from an extension thereof to the true 
spinal or ganglionic systems. The true spinal division of Dr. M. 
Hall, including the respiratory one of Sir C. Bell, is that presiding 
over ingestion, retention, expulsion, or exclusion from the animal 
frame, these being functions upon which the immediate preserva- 
tion of life and perpetuation of the species are dependant. The 
centre of this system is the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis. 
According to the same eminent authority, the ganglionic is that 
division regulating and presiding over interstitial absorption, reab- 
sorption, and the secretion of atoms and particles whereof the ani- 
mal frame is composed, and of ingesta and egesta. 
We have observed that the first unequivocal symptoms of this 
disease are coma, and impairment of voluntary motion and sensa- 
tion, with a peculiar appearance in the eyes, somewhat resembling 
amaurosis. I need not tell you that coma, impairment of volun- 
tary motion and sensation, presents indubitable evidence of cerebral 
affection, inasmuch as exemption therefrom, except during sleep, 
which is repose of the cerebral system only, implies a healthy 
state of the brain. These symptoms are all occasioned by pressure 
upon or within the cerebral substance. In the present case by con- 
gestion or effusion, but also exemplified, as previously noticed, by 
experiments to the same effect. 
As the disease advances, we have noticed other symptoms — im- 
pairment of deglutition and respiration, and inability to move the 
orbicularis palpebrarum on stimulus being applied. In very severe 
cases, and near the close of all, we have relaxation of the sphincters 
and cardiac orifice. These consist in impairment of the true spinal 
system, by extension of disease to its centres, the medulla oblongata 
and medulla spinalis. In explanation, I may observe, that volition, 
or will to perform motion, exercises considerable influence over re- 
spiration ; this, nevertheless, can, as a true spinal act, be continued 
