144 
PUERPERAL OR MILK FEVER IN CATTLE. 
nerves are affected, yet that the primary, the overwhelming 
affection originates in the organic ones; and that from sympa- 
thy, or from want of power in the voluntary motor nerves, with- 
out the aid derived from the purely organic ones, sufficiently to 
excite the muscles concerned in supporting the hind extremities, 
is the cause of this paralysis. That it does not arise (as has been 
said) from debility, admits in many cases of good proof. In the 
third case, the fat cow had been through a large pond of water, 
and broken down some strong iron hurdles, placed there to sepa- 
rate it into tw r o pastures, only an hour before she fell; and 
though this may very well account for her powerless state in so 
short a time, from the violent shock given to the nervous system, 
yet such extreme muscular debility could not in any other way 
have been produced in the time. Again ; connecting the total 
suspension of rumination and want of muscular action in the 
three first stomachs in life, with their being found invariably to 
retain their contents after death ; and taking into consideration 
that the action of all these stomachs is more mechanical than che- 
mical ; that they are not, strictly speaking, the organs of digestion, 
but only appointed to receive, to prepare, to separate, to send the 
food thus prepared, &c., by an extraordinary route, viz. back by 
the oesophagus to the mouth for re-mastication, again by another 
channel to be triturated afresh, and then sent forward to the 
fourth stomach, for the important purposes of digestion, &c.; and 
going on further also to consider, that though death may super- 
vene, you have still the same muscles undestroyed in their 
fibres, only variably injured by inflammatory action, or even not 
at all in some cases (as I shall presently prove to you) ; and 
reflecting also that they receive the necessary nervous stimulus 
from organic motor nerves alone, and that there are abundant 
proofs, that, from the time the animal falls, they cease to act 
(except roused to such action by artificial means), — I say, taking 
all these things into consideration, it can scarcely be called 
jumping hastily to the conclusion which I have adopted, for I 
think scarcely a stepping-stone will be wanting by which the most 
wary and deliberate person may not arrive at the same conclu- 
sion, — that the disease which has destroyed life in such cases 
originated in the organic motor nerves. 
And what are the proofs that the stomachs do not act after 
the animal falls ? These : — first, that, according to the time the 
animal has lain, you will find the contents of the stomachs more 
or less hard ; and this not from inflammation, but from an abstrac- 
tion of fluid, which will take place without the intervention of 
that muscular action necessary to move the more solid contents. 
And, secondly, that you will find the contents impressed with the 
