CORRESPONDENCE. 
4S7 
told the owner his cow must die. Inflated the udder about six 
o’clock in the evening, cow was up at midnight and ready for 
breakfast the next morning. I have treated one case within a 
month, where the last calf was six months old and the cow, if 
pregnant, of recent conception. History of having eaten some 
canteloupes, but no apparent disturbance, except that the bowels 
were loose. Unable to do anything but sway the body, when 
asked to rise. Inflated udder at noon, cow was still down that 
evening but comfortable, so let her alone; up and all right the next 
morning. I usually have several such cases in the course of a 
year. My most prolonged case was in a member of an Italian 
dairy and the paresis did follow parturition in the usual manner. 
She was down a full week, during which time I inflated the udder 
every day. She finally got up and made a good recovery. My 
most pronounced case was also truly p.p.p. It was during our 
rainy season, in the summer of 1907. Again in the middle of the 
day I was called to a cow which I found in a Cuban’s back yard 
with water ankle deep in the dry places. When I looked over 
the fence, I saw the cow lying on her right side, with the left 
flank looking like a balloon and no breathing that I could see. I 
told the people that she was dead; they said no, so I went on in. 
Close inspection showed that she was breathing, or getting an in¬ 
spiratory movement about once in thirty seconds; the eyes were 
glazed and did not react when touched with the finger. I then told 
the owner, talking through an interpreter, that if his cow was not 
dead, she soon would be, but that I would try, if he so desired. 
They said to do all I could. My first move was the trocar, then in¬ 
flation and then hypodermically, a cardiac tonic. By this time 
my cow was breathing almost normally and had come up onto her 
sternum. There was a swarm of Cuban onlookers and we got 
enough of them to place the animal on some tobacco sacking and 
carry her under a shed that only leaked between the boards. That 
evening she was up and out of the paralyzed condition. She 
developed a case of pneumonia and I pulled her through that, and 
when I was paid the owner was well enough pleased to present me 
with a quart bottle of imported brandy. 
In my estimation, the term parturient paresis is wrong. Cere¬ 
bral anemia comes much nearer describing the condition. Any 
exciting cause that will take the normal supply of blood away 
from the brain will produce it. An article published some time 
ago in the Review, I think by a German correspondent, cited 
cases occurring in cattle just off railroad shipment. In this 
