394 VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY# 
, y cases, nine recovered; eight were killed, 
without any attempt at curative means; and five died. Two be¬ 
gan to recover in one day, five in two, and two in three days. 
In the last case which occurred he punctured the abdomen, 
and much foetid gas escaped: the next day the cow got on her legs. 
Mr. Sewell had imagined the disease to be connected with in¬ 
flammation. Mr. King thought not. He has not for a long time 
bled, foi he nevei found it do any good. The animal is always 
costive. Fat cows are certainly more subject to it than lean ones. 
The pulse was always particularly slow. Some enlargement of the 
abdomen occasionally took place before the animal fell, and in¬ 
creased afterwards; and the extrication of air was sometimes so 
great as to tear the stomachs from their adhesion to the dia¬ 
phragm, and rupture that muscle. Did not imagine it to be epide¬ 
mic or contagious. Meat uninjured; and not to be distinguished 
from that of a beast that had been slaughtered in perfect health. 
Mr. Lythe remarked on Mr. King’s unwillingness to bleed. 
He had seen several cases in which the same system had been 
pursued, and they had terminated fatally. A cow of his own 
was thus affected. He took four quarts of blood, and gave a bottle 
of castor oil. Four hours afterwards he took four quarts more: 
at the expiration of another four hours, he took away the same 
quantity, and gave another bottle of oil. The cow recovered. 
Mr. Youatt differed from Mr. King in his view of the disease. 
It was a disease peculiar to cows in high condition. It attacked 
them at a time when they were more than usually liable to in¬ 
flammatory complaints, and when there were new determinations 
of the circulating fluids. It was preceded by a stoppage of the 
lochial discharge, and by a lessened or interrupted secretion of 
milk. Its early symptoms were evidently of a febrile character— 
the protuded eye, heaving flank, restlessness, irritability, de¬ 
noted fever. It was fever of a highly inflammatory nature, 
producing sudden and utter prostration of strength, and quickly 
assuming a typhoid form; as indicated by the rapid decomposi¬ 
tion and great extrication of foetid gas from the stomach. 
Mr. King acknowledged that cows in good condition were more 
subject to the disease; but he had seen it in those that were poor. 
He was not aware that it was connected with the suspension of 
any discharge or secretion. The early symptoms veterinarians had 
not often the opportunity of examining. He thought it extra¬ 
ordinary that if it were of this inflammatory nature it did not 
appear in young cows, and in their first or second calving. 
Mr. Lythe stated, that the falling off of the milk was an early 
and almost constant symptom. In proof of the inflammatory 
nature of the disease he referred to the common practice, when 
the pasturage was abundant, of keeping up the cow for a little 
