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splanchnic centre receive violent impact and instantly, almost, 
the transmitted impulse excites the contractile fibres in the brain, 
and the patient sinks away from sheer cerebral bloodlessness. 
Let the point of irritation be somewhere in the course of the 
enteric tract, and similar results will follow. Other things 
being equal, the degree of irritation determines the extent of 
morbid manifestation. In chronic diseases affecting any organ 
remote from the encephalon, the irritation is slowly carried along 
the afferent nerves until the great centres are reached, and then 
the work of general retrogression goes rapidly forward. Now 
parturition is not a chronic process, but it makes up in intensity 
of action for length of time. It may be likened to violence, and 
the whole nervous system feels the force of the energetic action. 
As pointed out by MacDonald, it is not until the deep-seated 
nerve centres are implicated in the irritation that that profound 
degree of anaemia takes place, which leads to unmistakable 
symptomatic pictures. We are aware that this anaemic view of 
the pathology of parturient apoplexy is not generally received. 
^Indeed, it has never challenged the consideration its importance 
demands. In human medicine it has revolutionized opinion and 
practice, and the veterinary profession should not be many steps 
behind their fellows in the higher science and art. 
It is impossible at the present time to set a limit to the influ¬ 
ence of peripheral irritation in inducing morbid states, by reflex 
action, in remote parts of the animal organism. In support of 
the view here maintained, we may quote a brief passage in illus¬ 
tration of the influence of irritation in exciting morbid conditions. 
He says (Diseases of the Nervous System, page 880): “a painful 
sensation starting from the testicle leads, at first, to a contraction 
of the muscular tissue of the scrotum, with retraction of the tes¬ 
ticles. When this pain reaches a sufficient degree of intensity, 
the walls of the abdomen and of the several hollow viscera con¬ 
tained in the abdominal cavity, enter also into contraction. There 
may even be developed general convulsions, the result, doubtless, 
of the reflex contraction of the vessels of the nervous centres, and 
of the olighemia resulting therefrom.” 
