PARTURIENT APOPLEXY. 
441 
quite lost. The temperature, which has previously been but little 
altered, will now gradually fall, perhaps as low as 95° Fahrenheit; 
on passing the catheter the bladder will be found filled with urine 
of rather a high color. The discharge from the uterus will be en¬ 
tirely stopped. Passage of faeces at this time will also be stopped. 
On removing what may be there from the rectum, will find a 
mixture of hard and soft faeces. All secretions from this on are 
generally stopped during the comatose state. Some few cases 
secrete urine, but the majority with me have not during the 
comatose state. The milk secretions are suspended almost if not 
entirely. What little milk we may find will be altered in color 
and consistency. If the cow gets well all these symptoms may 
change back to normal condition after twelve or twenty-four 
hours or may prolong the time to eight or nine days. (The coma¬ 
tose condition lasts for twenty-four hours usually). I remem¬ 
ber three cases that lived for eight days with parturient apoplexy ; 
two of them died and the third got on her feet on the eighth 
day and made a slow recovery. 
The post mortem has never revealed much. We find differ¬ 
ent conditions, due chiefly, I think, to the time of the animal’s 
death; mode of dying having much to do with the result. Some 
authors and others that have written for the journals claim to 
have found an alteration in the spinal cord or its meninges. Post¬ 
mortem has never revealed any such lesion with me. Some re¬ 
port clots on the brain. In one that died quickly I found the 
brain congested ; in another a rupture of one of the blood vessels 
had taken place; that one died in twelve hours from the time it 
went down. A post-mortem of the renowned Jersey cow Ona , 
aged ten, showed no lesions anywhere except the heart. She 
lived nine days, becoming bright, eating some and taking plenty 
of nourishment in the shape of gruel with a relish; when all at 
once there were severe spasms around the region of the heart, 
what was apparently to me a paralysis of that organ ; these symp¬ 
toms continued but a short time when they put an end to her exis¬ 
tence. The heart on post-mortem was flabby, both cavities entirely 
empty and contracted, the organ having undergone fatty degenera¬ 
tion. 
