PARTURIENT APOPLEXY. 
643 
even abundant quantity/’ Why then, after the blood has 
already found its proper distribution and the organs taken 
on their natural functions, should the process suddenly cease. 
In the light of a cause of the disease the cessation of milk 
secretion cannot be accepted, but simply taken as the result 
of a disease. It is well known that in all cases of indigestion 
the milk secretions are suddenly stopped. 
Just what idea is intended to be conveyed by the term 
“ parturient apoplexy ” is not clear, at least is indefinite. The 
term apoplexy is generally used to signify a cerebral apo¬ 
plexy—a congestion of the brain. Dunglinson defines “ apo¬ 
plexy ”—“ every effusion of blood which occurs suddenly 
into the substance of any organ or tissue,” but farther speaks 
of u embolic apoplexy,” or “apoplectiform cerebral embo¬ 
lism,” which I think generally meets our cases, and describes 
it as “ resulting from the plugging up of the cerebral vessels 
with emboli—an anaemic condition of the brain thus resulting 
from insufficient blood supply.” 
In the cases which I have examined—post-mortem—while 
there may have been more or less congestion of the meninges, 
such was not the condition of the brain tissues, but clots, em¬ 
boli, were invariably present; and I shall here introduce the 
theory that the blood of the animal at this time is in such a 
condition as to especially favor the formation of thrombi, 
which condition, being associated with the gastric affection 
and sympathetic cerebral complications, combine in one com¬ 
mon cause to produce a disease for which, for want of a better 
name, I must accept the term parturient apoplexy. It is said 
that in the human female the fibrine, or constituents thereof, 
is decreased during the first six months of pregnancy, the aver¬ 
age being 2.3, while in the last three months it is increased 
to 4, and as the fibrine results from the metamorphosis of the 
albumen of the blood and other tissues, and that the blood of 
the foetus is the great store-house of nutrition, as well as the 
receptacle of all waste products—the latter being transferred 
to the blood of the mother through the placenta, and that 
with the functional development and growth of other organs 
the placenta becomes of less consequence and a fatty degen- 
