607 
Translations and Reviews of Continental 
Veterinary Journals. 
By W. Ernes, M.R.C.V.S., London. 
Annales de Medecine Veterinaire, Bruxelles, Mai, 1862. 
PUERPERAL APOPLEXY: ITS NATURE, CAUSES, AND TREAT¬ 
MENT, CURATIVE, AND PROPHYLACTIC, &c, 
By Th. V anderschuerex, Medecin Veterinaire du Gouvernement a 
Grammont. 
This malady has been of frequent occurrence during "the 
year 1861. It carries off every year great numbers of the 
best milch cows, which has for some time past drawn the at¬ 
tention of the author to it. The great number of cases that 
he has attended, and the many autopsies he has made, have 
enabled him to form an opinion as to its nature, &c. 
Vitulary fever, commonly called droping after calving, 
puerpural or parturient apoplexy, is an affection of the milch 
cow, attacking her from the first to the third day after par¬ 
turition, but seldom before. 
This affection is so well known that it is needless to 
enumerate the symptoms. Formerly 7 it only occurred in the 
stables of the small cultivators, where the cows were well 
cared for and fed mostly on cooked food—in a word, where 
everything tended to cause an abundant secretion of milk. 
From year to year this malady has become more frequent, 
and it now T occurs in the sheds of the large farms, and has 
assumed a gravity which frightens the cultivators of the 
land. 
The nature of this malady has been differently viewed by 
veterinary practitioners. It has been considered, one after 
the other, as metro-peritonitis, acute indigestion, a nervous 
affection, cerebral apoplexy 7 , &c. This last view has the 
greatest number of partisans; nevertheless, this diversity of 
opinion is a sufficient proof that its nature is still involved in 
some mystery. 
In a great number of cases the cadaveric researches have 
shown no lesion. Sometimes traces of inflammation are dis¬ 
covered in the peritoneum, the uterus, the intestines, and the 
lungs, but not enough to attribute to them the cause of death. 
Sometimes a clot of coagulated blood has been found by the 
author on the bulb of the spinal cord, but rarely those 
lesions which characterize cerebral apoplexy. These dif- 
