PUERPERAL OR MILK FEVER IN CATTLE. 
141 
the subject itself does not form a sufficient one, I have no other 
to offer. The opinions herein advanced are the result of much 
thought and observation ; and though you will find they differ 
in some respects from those expressed in my former paper on the 
same subject, yet I think I may venture to say, that, upon the 
whole, they will be found to be but a carrying out of those which 
I then entertained, naturally arising out of circumstances. I had 
then the thread of the labyrinth, and I was endeavouring to 
trace it through all its mystic windings and mazes, but I had got 
hold of the wrong end ; as a sportsman would say, * I was on the 
heel of the scent/ But if my own observations and experience 
subsequently have enabled me to follow its intricacies to a rest- 
ing-place ; if I have arrived at a conclusion which will be proved 
to possess a moral certainty ; or if even I hereby furnish a clue 
which may enable any of the profession to come to the same de- 
sirable end ; this paper will not have been written in vain. 
Puerperal or milk fever, as it is called, in cows, appears to be 
in them a disease of a specific character, and he who reasons from 
analogy in these cases will be sure to err. It is a name which, 
in my opinion, indicates any thing but the real character of the 
disease, which I consider to be one most decidedly originating in 
the organic motor nerves*. My reasons for this opinion will be 
detailed in conjunction with an account of five cases of this 
disease under different circumstances; and, fearful lest I shall 
be obliged to trespass on the patience of your readers, I must 
preface them by bespeaking their indulgence. 
CASE I. 
A cow in fair condition, belonging to Mr. Porter, Little L 011 - 
don-street, Walsall, fell on the 6th June, 1835. I was called in 
at half past eleven at night; she had been down only two or three 
hours, and she died at one. 
Inspectio cadaver is . — No disease appeared except in the sto- 
machs ; they were slightly inflamed : the cuticular coat would 
peel off with difficulty, and shewed injection into the muscular 
coats. Gall-bladder full. Uterus healthyf. 
* Considering the nerves as part and parcel of the brain — as ‘ streams from 
the fountain’ — as identified in the most vital manner with this all-important 
organ, I shall purposely speak only of them in this article, leaving it for 
future research and examination to determine the relative influence of each 
on the other in these cases; to ascertain the lesions, which will, I hope at 
some early day, enable us to determine the specific character of this cere- 
bral disease, and to lead to that most desirable end, a rational and well- 
grounded system of remedial treatment. 
f When I speak of either health or disease in these post-mortem examina- 
tions, your readers mil please to suppose that the nerves are excepted. 
