PARTURIENS MEDULLITIS. 
373 
beacons for you, to warn you against falling into such like errors. 
Nay, more, such facts, and many more that I could adduce, cannot 
fail to produce on your minds the conviction that, in order to avoid 
such representations as these, — -to promote good fellowship and good 
feeling amongst ourselves — to fulfil our duty to our employers, and 
to shew ourselves GENTLEMEN, we should follow those rules of 
conduct which will produce so desirable a result. 
What are these rules ] 
[To be continued.] 
PARTURIENS MEDULLITIS. 
By E. A. Friend, Esq., Walsall. 
Dear Sir, — I n the last communication I had the honour to ad- 
dress to you on the subject of puerperal fever in cows, I stated, in 
endeavouring to trace this disease through its symptoms and effects 
to it$ cause, that I had no doubt that it originated in chronic disease 
of some part of the spinal columns or cerebral viscera, and that 
this disease was brought to a crisis by some peculiar circumstances 
connected with parturition. I intended then to have stated dis- 
tinctly what those peculiar circumstances were, and was quite un- 
aware of the omission until I afterwards saw it in The VETERINA- 
RIAN in the incomplete state in which it there stands. I now beg 
that you will indulge me with a little space in your next number for 
the remarks herein sent ; and I hope that they will be found to 
furnish what has hitherto been wanting on this subject, viz. the pre- 
disposing and immediate cause of this complaint. 
It will be unnecessary again to endeavour seriously to combat 
with the supposed causes which have hitherto been stated to pro- 
duce this disease, because they decidedly contradict each other ; and 
it is known to take place in all the extreme opposites of these said 
causes, as often as in those which different practitioners have as- 
signed as producing it : in fact, they appear now to be all given up 
as by common consent. 
The predisposing cause, then, is, as I have before stated it to be, 
chronic disease of the spinal columns*. That this is one of the 
most common affections to which cattle are liable — either as a pri- 
mary disease or as one in connexion with some other — is proved by 
every day’s experience ; and it is to this that I have before pointed. 
I again most urgently repeat the caution, that if the farmer 
would avoid this fatal malady, he must not neglect to combat it in 
* I am of opinion that there are a few cases not rcferrible to this cause, 
but produced by direct injury to the nervous system during parturition. 
VOL. XII. 3 D 
