512 
A PECULIAR DISEASE OF THE COW. 
vagina a discharge of bloody sanies, and sometimes detached 
cotilydons or glands of the womb in a state of decomposition 
have been occasionally observed. Daring the progress of these 
changes in the vital functions others occur in the animal ones. 
The cow gets up with some degree of difficulty — walks unsteadily 
— elevating the head, and betraying a degree of giddiness. 
The characteristic symptom is the peculiar scent of the milk and 
breath : and, as far as my experience goes, no disease is marked 
by a more unerring index than these afford. The veterinarian 
conversant with it may recognize its existence on entering the 
byre even in the dark. 
It mostly occurs in winter and spring: high feeding and the 
absurd practice of giving stimulating medicine immediately after 
delivery, appear to be among the exciting causes ; and one feature 
it possesses in common with encephalitis parturiens — it leaves in the 
subject a strong predisposition to a recurrence of the disease at 
the end of succeeding gestations. 
I do not recollect having seen the disease developed earlier than 
the fourth, nor later than the twenty-fourth day after delivery. 
The treatment I adopt with almost invariable success, is 
moderate blood-letting if the pulse warrants it — evacuating the 
bowels by gentle purgatives, assisted by copious enemata — sub- 
duing inordinate arterial action, and restoring healthy secretion 
by the use of antimonials, digitalis, &c., and these ultimately 
combined with or superseded by stimulants and tonics. Should 
the uterine evacuation become so acrimonious as to excite evident 
uneasiness, I would use emollient, anodyne, or antiseptic injections 
locally, as the case might require. 
Were it justifiable to occupy your pages with conjectures on 
the pathology of an anonymous disease, with the anatomical 
characters of which I am confessedly ignorant, I would briefly 
remark, that, aware of the physical changes effected on the pro- 
ducts of the respiratory and lacteal glands by certain alimentary 
substances, and of the opinion of some that similar changes re- 
sult from derangement in the digestive system, I formerly sup- 
posed that the seat of this disease was in that system; but subse- 
quent opportunities of observation have led me to suppose that a 
diseased state of the generative organs is a frequent, if not invari- 
able concomitant. As it occurs only in cows soon after calving, 
it seems still more probable that the phenomena of the disease 
depend on a morbid condition of the internal membrane of the 
uterus, and that the alteration in the milk, breath, and mental 
operations, proceeds from the blood being contaminated by the 
absorption of morbific matter thence. It may be said that the 
brain is affected through sympathy ; but can the secretions thus 
