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PAPERS COMPETING FOR THE REVIEW PRIZE. 
7 
of cerebral congestion which are characteristic.” The absence of 
these is presumptive evidence, at least, of some other morbid 
condition. 
Following close upon the discovery that hemorrhagic extrava¬ 
sation was not always present at post-mortem came a revolution 
in opinion concerning the intimate nature of parturient apoplexy. 
Factors not yet recognized were potential in the evolution of the 
disorder, and the time was now opportune for the growth of 
hypotheses. These succeeded each other in rapid succession. 
From the doctrine of congestion, through every shade of chang¬ 
ing opinion, passed the professional mind, and even yet there is 
no definiteness to professional opinion. Franck and Fleming, 
perhaps, more than any other investigators, have sought to irradi¬ 
ate this special field of bovine pathology. The hypothesis first 
enunciated by Traube and Rosenberg has been carefully investi¬ 
gated by these distinguished writers on veterinary medicine, and 
they declare (Fleming’s Veterinary Obstetrics, page 668) that “if 
we consider the conditions which are present at parturition, as 
well as the symptoms of the disease, we are led' to attribute the 
origin of the latter to an acute anaemia, and consequent sudden 
loss of brain power.” It is true that the anaemia, which is here 
regarded as the efficient cause of the phenomena, is itself a 
sequential condition—the antecedent state being one of hyper- 
aemia. The experimental researches of Kussmane and Tenner 
have shown that cerebral anaemia will induce the phenomena of 
parturient apoplexy in every grade and degree in which they 
occur, from simple motor and sense disturbance to the profound- 
est convulsion. Now here are the phenomena of a disease which 
arises only during the parturient state in the cow. Rarely is the 
same group of symptoms seen apart from this condition. Natur¬ 
ally the inquiry arises, What is there in the parturient state of 
the cow that predisposes her to this disease ? The quality of the 
blood is changed. It is hydrsetnic. As pregnancy advances the 
disproportion between the corpuscular elements and the liquor 
sanguinous increases. The oxidizing properties of the blood are 
diminished. The physiological law of healthy functioning 
requires the uniform supply of normal blood. The culmination 
