280 
PUERPERAL FEVER IN A COW. 
very often in the jungles of India. I cannot answer for the wolf, 
but suspect that, with the other members of the canine tribe, he 
is also liable to distemper. It is to be remembered that distem- 
per is a disease which puts on a variety of forms, and is blended 
with other ailments, such as enteritis, diarrhoea, and mange. Nav, 
there are some doubts in my mind as to the distemper being 
connected with the rabies, for there are many symptoms in the 
latter which closely resemble those in the former. One thing is 
certain, that distemper may come on without contagion, and that 
it depends more upon some organic disease or derangement in 
the animal functions than upon the communication of a specific 
virus : however, I do not deny the power of contagion to dis- 
temper. Commonly in this country the organic derangements 
are in the lungs, in the mucous membranes of the head, in the 
bowels and other viscera. I have seen a kind of distemper here 
which lasts for some months during the rainy and cold season, 
and disappears in the hot weather : it is most frequently attended 
with cough, pulmonary congestion, and lankness. Another type 
of the disease comes on in the very hottest months, chiefly 
in imported strong dogs ; it is acute for a few days, and ter- 
minates fatally, when the victim dies in great agony, howling and 
tossing. 
Sulkea, April 1836. J. G. 
PUERPERAL FEVER IN A COW. 
By Mr. Robert B. Rush, Lopham , Norfolk. 
A cow, seven years old, and in good condition, calved on the 
3d of April last. On the 5th she was found down, and without 
the power of rising. She had been left standing on the pre- 
ceding night, and in apparent good health. The pulse was 45 — 
the extremities cold — the breathing somewhat disturbed, and 
the bowels very much constipated. 
My father went, and gave her half a drachm of the farina of 
the croton nut, a drachm of calomel, and one pint of linseed oil. 
In the afternoon I saw her, and found her in precisely the same 
state. I gave her nine drachms of Cape aloes, an ounce of gin- 
ger, and six ounces of the sulphate of soda, in a little warm 
water. Her back was well rubbed with a strong stimulating em- 
brocation, almost equal to liquid blister, from the posterior part 
of the sacrum to the middle of the dorsal vertebrae. This rub- 
bing was repeated in the evening, and twice on the following 
