PUERPERAL OR MILK FEVER IN CATTLE. 
143 
writer. I could not satisfactorily account for the fact (consider- 
ing it to be a disease originating in fever, and essentially inflam- 
matory), that powerful, very powerful stimulant medicines were 
evidently of the utmost benefit in these cases. I knew the fact, 
and I drew conclusions from it, impotent enough I confess ; and 
though I was obliged, for want of better argument, to make use 
of them, yet they did not satisfy me. Long before the death of 
this cow I had suspected that fever was only symptomatic : now 
I was convinced, and I was also thoroughly convinced, that 
primarily it is a cerebral and not a visceral disease. I reasoned 
with myself thus : — What are the symptoms in life, and appear- 
ances after death, invariably connected with puerperal fever? 
And what are those which, occurring differently in different cases, 
entitle them only to the appellation of accidental or variable 
ones ? I classed them in something like the following manner : — 
First, as the invariable living symptoms, and post-mortem ap- 
pearances — paralysis of the hind extremities — total suspension 
of rumination — evident loss of muscular action in the first three 
stomachs in life, proved after death by their retaining their con- 
tents — unnatural fulness of the gall-bladder — more or less diffi- 
culty in breathing — a peculiar haggardness and dejection of 
countenance — an imperfect secretion of milk — an inclination to 
turn the head back on the sides — and no maternal anxiety. 
Secondly. As the variable ones : Pain — more or less inflam- 
mation of the stomachs and intestines, according to the time the 
beast has lain, or the previous state of plethora, &c. — the same 
of the lungs and other viscera — difficult deglutition — and, gene- 
rally, healthy uterus. 
Classing them, then, something in this way, calling in the aid 
of past experience, collating and comparing various cases, which 
memory enabled me to do from a rapid retrospection of both suc- 
cessful and unsuccessful practice in this disease, I arrived at the 
conclusion which I projected at the commencement of this 
paper, — that puerperal fever (so called) in cows decidedly origin- 
ates in disease of the organic motor nerves. 
If you will allow me, I will furnish you with some of the argu- 
ments in favour of my new theory, as they presented themselves 
to me ; but instead of ranging through the whole of my past 
practice for simple facts, I will limit myself to those detailed in 
the three cases already mentioned. 
First in order, then : Paralysis of the hinder extremities. 
This is evidently a disease of motor nerves; whether principally of 
organic ones, or of those of voluntary motion, or of both, I will 
leave for the present, with only hazarding a conjecture, that 
though there is sufficient proof that some of the voluntary 
