37*2 
PUERPERAL FEVER IN CATTLE, AND THE THEORY 
OF RUMINATION. 
By Mr. J. Anderson, Leicester . 
On the 29th December, 1835, I was called to an aged cow, 
belonging to Mr. Walker of Rothley. She had calved the pre- 
vious day, with little or no difficulty in parturition : the pla- 
centa came away ; the calf was healthy, and every thing seemed 
to be doing well : notwithstanding which, this morning she sud- 
denly dropped. Mr. Thomas Walker, one of my pupils, was in 
attendance from the commencement of her parturient pains, and 
had used the treatment adopted generally in the present prac- 
tice ; the disease, however, progressed with great rapidity. 
I arrived in the evening at 7 o’clock, and found that the patient 
was fast sinking. There was great prostration of the vital powers ; 
pulse scarcely to be felt ; respiration laborious ; rumination sus- 
pended, and suppression of milk. The udder was engorged and 
inflamed; the rumen distended ; there was obstinate constipation, 
and the power of deglutition was lost. I tried various means 
for her relief, but to no purpose ; she died at 10 o’clock p.m. 
I immediately proceeded to the post-mortem examination. 
The contents of the rumen and reticulum were soft; but those of 
the manyplus were impacted, dry, and hard, and the folds were 
very tender. The medicines had not acted on this stomach. The 
contents of the abomasum were in a semi-fluid state, the me- 
dicines having here exerted their principal influence. A few 
scybaloe were found in the small intestines : the gall cyst was 
charged with foetid bile. The udder was full of coagulated milk. 
The suppurative process had begun, and the lactiferous tubes 
were obstructed. The lungs and liver were unaffected. The 
head was not examined, for I was fatigued by a long journey, 
and I did not expect to find any lesions of the brain that would 
throw much light on the subject. By the time the examination 
was over, and which had occupied the greater part of the night, 
decomposition had advanced to a considerable degree, and the 
air of the place was scarcely bearable. 
From this case, in addition to too many others, I am inclined 
to believe, that the morbid appearances observed on dissection 
will not, in many instances, satisfactorily account for the death of 
the patient. In the above case, however, it would seem to have 
been a deficiency of nervous energy. 
Puerperal fever is a very obscure disease ; it is one sui generis . 
