ON PUERPERAL FEVER IN CATTLE. 
189 
matory action.” What if this should be (as I have supposed it 
to be) disease of the organic motor nerves ? What so likely ? In 
short, Sir, if it be from this undefined cause at all, it must he of 
the nerves. He adds, though, that it “ is not of much consequence 
to know from which of these causes it does arise.” If this be 
his opinion, he is wrong to quarrel with those who are anxious 
to trace events to their causes ; and if he will not go with them, 
he should be content to stay alone in peace, without wishing to 
deter others from proceeding without him. 
After this, Mr. Wilson seems to think that he has shewn with 
“sufficient clearness that, in puerperal fever, fever is the cause 
and not the consequence of some other disease.” Let us review 
the proofs, as he has offered them to us. lie says there is 
“ complete loss of appetite,” — “ rumination is suspended.” 
The first may be, and no doubt is, the consequence of the se- 
cond ; for where there are no means of getting rid of the load al- 
ready oppressing the stomachs, it is not reasonable to suppose that 
there should be a craving for more. Now for the second : He 
may find many cases of decided fever where rumination is still 
carried on to a certain extent (proving that fever does not neces- 
sarily destroy this important function), but no single case in this 
disease, where the animal is down, that rumination is not totally 
suspended. Next, “ severe constipation.” This may or may 
not be a consequence of fever. You have purging often accom- 
panying fever in cattle as well as constipation. But if I am cor- 
rect, if the organic motor nerves are affected, constipation must 
follow, from loss of stimuli. — Nexthe says, “ great prostration of 
strength:” I call this paralysis of the hind extremities; and I 
really do feel surprised that Mr. Wilson will shut his eyes to 
this important fact. If it were really occasioned by fever, why 
do not fevers always produce it? They are common enough in 
cows; and yet there is no disease but this particular one that 
produces this extreme affection. And again, if fever does pro- 
duce it, how comes it, that it is not a gradually increasing debi- 
lity? I could call upon many contributors to your work, who 
would recollect cows in fine condition, in possession of the fullest 
extent of their powers, that have been down, unable to rise, in 
two or three hours after being allowed to feed (soon after calving) 
in a pasture too rich and luxuriant — a time in which fever could 
not possibly have produced this debility. 
These, Sir, with the fact that his three cases of puerperal fever 
got well under a system of depletion and purgatives, are what 
he rests upon to prove that my doctrine is unsound. Now, as 
I have shewn, that though fever may accompany, yet that it is 
not absolutely necessary to produce the foregoing results, and 
