456 APPARENT DEBILITY ATTENDING PUERPERAL FEVER. 
symptoms which we occasionally observe subsequent to the 
expulsion of the contents of the uterus. 
In a cow whose blood is greatly enriched by nutritive food 
and inactivity, the whole system is in a state of general excita- 
tion ; and in the ratio of the plethoric diathesis is the liability 
to inflammatory action and local congestion. Considering the 
sudden and important change which takes place in the condition 
of the uterus, we cannot be surprised that this organ should fre- 
quently be the subject of inflammation ; and this perverted 
action, when once excited, may, by the various morbid sympa- 
thies which it gives rise to, produce the whole train of symptoms 
we observe in the disease misnamed puerperal fever. I was often 
at the outset of my career at a loss to know how to proceed in 
combatting this disease: the smallness and apparent debility of 
the pulse, together with the drooping of the head and the inabi- 
lity to move the extremities, rendered the diagnosis very difficult, 
and was calculated to mislead an inexperienced practitioner : 
however, from a conviction that uterine inflammation was at the 
bottom of all the mischief, I fearlessly enforced the antiphlo- 
gistic regimen, and have never had reason to repent of it: indeed, 
with a few exceptions, out of a great many cases, they all ter- 
minated happily; and I invariably found, in the successful cases, 
that the strength of the pulse increased under such discipline. 
With all due deference to your opinion, I submit that the legi- 
timate deduction is (so far as my observation goes) that the 
apparently irremediable prostration of the powers of life, and 
supposed paralysis of the hind limbs, is neither more nor less 
than that which is appropriately and expressively designated 
false adynamia. This kind of debility is always dependent upon 
deranged circulation ; a fact I have no doubt, Mr. Editor, you 
have repeatedly observed in your own practice. This feebleness 
is relievable by well-regulated depletion and purgation, and by 
the judicious employment of these natural vigour is soon restored, 
and health is revived without local lesion of any kind ensuing. 
If stimulants through misconception are substituted for eva- 
cuants in the early stage of this disease, the chances are much 
against the animal’s recovery. 
By way of illustrating my treatment, I shall relate a case 
which lately occurred in a mare, being the only or\e of the 
kind that ever came under my observation in that animal. 
On the 25th of June last I was called to see a mare, the pro- 
perty of William Scott Kerr, Esq., of Chatto. 1 was informed 
by Mr. Kerr’s groom that the mare had foaled about thirty hours 
before, and appeared quite well. I learned also that the partu- 
rition had been very difficult, and that there was an abundant 
