ON PUERPERAL FEVER IN THE COW. 
501 
or other times, and why should constipation 1 Constipation, as 
such, will not kill a beast in six, eight, or twelve hours, as this 
disease frequently does ; nor is it accompanied by coma, loss of 
sight, sensation, and volition, or impairment of respiration and de- 
glutition, but exhibits symptoms of its own with which you are 
all conversant. This constipation I am persuaded is not exclu- 
sively a cause, but almost invariably an effect, depending upon the 
withdrawal or annihilation of nervous power, from causes already 
stated whereon healthy organic actions depend. Hardness of fseces 
and food in the stomachs is occasioned by an operation of physical 
and chemical changes ever attendant upon the cessation of those of 
vitality. 
That the disease consists in an oppression of nervous tissue 
is, I conceive, abundantly evident from the post-mortem appear- 
ances and experiments, fulfilling the same purpose or effect, in 
which they consist. That this oppressing substance consists in 
blood, or some of its constituent parts, is also evident upon exa- 
mination, and is farther confirmed by the fact that powerful deple- 
tion before calving, or immediately after, prevents the disease. 
From the fact, also, that it never occurs before calving, and almost 
invariably within three days afterwards, we may suppose that par- 
turition is the exciting and essential cause of its occurrence. Our 
prognosis depends upon the symptoms and stage of attendance. 
If the animal has only lately fallen, and the coma is slight, volition 
little impaired, the bowels moderately open, with power of deglu- 
tition remaining, we may indulge the hope of a favourable termi- 
nation. Should our patient, as is too rarely the case, be standing, 
every probability of success is greater. But if coma is complete, 
vision entirely gone, respiration and deglutition impaired, sensa- 
tion and motion destroyed, our prospects can be no other than the 
reverse. Danger is, indeed, proportionate to the extent in which 
the cerebral, true spinal, and ganglionic functions are affected, all 
being accurately denoted by symptoms for which the practitioner 
should, by his physiological knowledge, be able to account. 
The terminations are, recovery, paralysis of some part or parts, 
and death. Recovery is often astonishingly rapid, and results from 
a restoration of the parts affected to their normal state. Death is 
occasioned, not only by the breach or oppression of nervous struc- 
ture, but also by the circulation of blood containing ingredients de- 
structive to life or insufficient to support it — ordinarily separated 
therefrom by various glands of the body, and now incapacitated by 
a withdrawal of their nervous powers upon which their healthy 
functions materially depend. In some districts this disease is 
comparatively unknown. Here the cows are small, their food un- 
stimulating, and the quantity of milk they yield limited. But in 
VOL. XVII. 3 u 
