ON THE STOMACilS OF RUMINANTS. 
201 
that is not referrible to this cause; and the methods of treat¬ 
ment for which have not been directed to the removal of it. 
I will refer you, if you please, to one case in the number for 
March last, detailed by Mr. 11. Sumner, on which case he founds 
a question involving circumstances of considerable importance 
to the practitioner, and which question was answered by you in 
the editorial article for that month. In this case I infer, from 
what Mr. S. says in the latter clav.se of his question, that 
he supposed the seat of disease to exist in the first, second, and 
third, stomachs principally; and 1 have no doubt that he was 
quite right in supposing so. In almost all cases of puerperal 
fever, and where cow^s are dow n after calving, these viscera are 
considerably affected ; and I am of opinion, that by far a greater 
number of cases of this kind are produced by the quantity or 
quality of the food taken immediately preceding the attack, 
than from any other cause. 
I have seen numbers of cases, where cow’s (doing perfectly 
well after calving) being allowed to go into too luxuriant pas¬ 
tures, or otherwise to feed unrestrained, have fallen, and have 
at once exhibited all the painful symptoms attending the w’orst 
states of puerperal fever ; and some where death, in despite of 
all assistance, has supervened. There is the distressing moan¬ 
ing, the drooping ears, the dreadfully dejected countenance, the 
eye sunken and lustreless, the head thrown back, as if it were 
an index to point out the seat of pain and disease, the extremities 
cold, and the animal altogether displaying such a picture of 
pitiable wretchedness as must be seen to be understood: and 
all this, at times, in the absence of such a state of inflamma¬ 
tory action as to render it matter of extreme surprise to those 
who have not seen much of it, and the cure of which is some¬ 
times perfectly effected by powerfully evacuating the stomachs 
and intestines. 
There is, generally speaking, an unhealthy discharge from 
the uterus; and I consider that this is the part primarily af¬ 
fected, that this affection extends by sympathy to the digestive 
viscera of the abdomen, and that the most dangerous portions of 
the viscera are the first, second, and third stomachs, because w-e 
can most certainly give medicine to act upon the abomasum 
and intestines, while the certainty of affecting the first three is 
to me rather problematical, for reasons wdiich I wall explain 
hereafter. My practice has always been directed to clearing the 
stomachs, at all events; and I have found, w’here I could do this 
effectually, I have most commonly succeeded in saving the animal: 
and I have scarcely ever (in fact, I cannot recollect a single 
instance) had a post-mortem examination, tliat has not exhibited 
VOL. VI. c c 
