682 
ON REDWATER AND PUERPERAL FEVER. 
By a Veterinary Surgeon. 
[This Jpaper is from an old and valued correspondent, who has 
more than once favoured us with some observations on these dis- 
eases of cattle. It would be with considerable pain that we refused 
to insert any communication from him ; but we tell him plainly, 
yet not offensively, that we do not like anonymous letters. They 
ill suit with the present advanced state of our art. — Edit.] 
I FEEL disposed to contribute a few lines to your next number 
on two cases and post-mortem examinations, by Mr. Tombs, de- 
signated Redwater and Puerperal Fever: not with the slightest 
wish of entering into a controversy with him, but, as the above 
diseases are not so well understood as they should be, I would have 
a reconsideration and communication of facts by all who have the 
means of observing these maladies. 
Having premised thus much, I would beg to state that the former 
is not a case of the disease known by me under the name of Red- 
water, in which, beyond question, there is a discharge of blood 
to a great, and sometimes fatal, extent; and, as it appears to me, 
in consequence of a relaxed state of the kidneys. I use the term 
“ sometimes fatal” because I consider it as the effect of the disease, 
rather than the disease itself, and other causes operating, in many 
cases, to produce death, some days after the discharge of blood has 
ceased. 
There are, it is true, some cases of the specific disease in which 
the urine is of a dirty-brown colour, but which, nevertheless, con- 
tains blood, or, at any rate, albuminous matter similar to it, and 
which I have proved to my satisfaction by means of heat. The 
disease in question, as is well known, is rarely seen in its true 
form, except in particular districts, among which I know not whether 
the neighbourhood of Pershore is numbered: but, for want of 
farther proof, I must consider this as a case of congestion of the 
liver, a disease very common among horses, and I see no reason 
why it may not occasionally be met with among cattle, though I 
have not made a post-mortem examination of such a case. In addi- 
tion to this, I have never met with congested liver in very many 
accounts of redwater cases. 
The latter case was, very likely, one known as puerperal fever, 
though there is wanting a description of many symptoms, and, at 
any rate, the early ones. The autopsy, so far as it was car- 
ried, is satisfactory ; but why were not the brain and spinal cord 
examined, in the membranes of which, I have no doubt, would 
