882 SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY ASSOCIATION. 
though no wiser head has been at the helm, nor better methods 
of treatment been resorted to. 
Post-mortem appearances .—We frequently hear the remark 
that no satisfactory post-mortem changes are found in animals 
that have died from parturient apoplexy. This is to a great 
extent true, although, in not a few instances, it results from 
want of opportunity or time on the part of the veterinary surgeon 
to institute a sufficiently searching investigation into the post¬ 
mortem lesions. The surgeon who has greater facilities in 
hospitals to make such examinations, has often to search, in cases 
of apoplexy, a long time before he can find any satisfactory 
change, and occasionally fails altogether in doing so, and under 
the circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that, in so far as 
the post-mortem examinations of cattle are concerned, the results 
should in many instances be nil. Again, we are apt to confine 
our search too much to one sphere, as the head and the spine, or 
to the womb itself. Now, as I have shown that so-called 
parturient apoplexy frequently depends upon reflex or eccentric 
irritation, it is plain we must diligently search not only for post¬ 
mortem appearances, in accordance with centric causes, but those 
also dependent upon ec--centric causes; hence, we should direct 
our attention to all the internal organs, particularly the bladder, 
intestines, and stomachs. Some have thought that because they 
have occasionally found impaction of the third stomach that it 
must necessarily be always an accompaniment of this disease, 
on the same principle, I presume, as the veterinary surgeon 
who on dissecting the leg of a horse which had been the subject 
of stringhalt, finding a spicula of bone in the course of a nerve, 
declared for ever afterwards that this was the only cause of this 
particular affection; but we as often find the contents of the third 
stomach in a semi-fluid condition as we do in a solid or dry 
state; and the same may be said of the contents of the intestines, 
and we are led to think, “ what has been the use of all our purga¬ 
tive medicines here ?” Although impaction of the third stomach, 
or constipation of the bowels, may be causes, tffey are as often 
consequences of the disease, and pass away on recovery from the 
more acute symptoms. A congested condition of the mucous 
membrane of the small intestines and fourth stomach has been 
mistaken for inflammation, and regarded as a cause, whereas it is 
an effect, either of congestion, in common with all the other 
vascular structures of the body, or of the irritation produced by 
purging medicines. Inflammation of these organs at the time of 
parturition may undoubtedly act as an eccentric cause of con¬ 
vulsions or apoplexy, as inflammation or chronic disease of any 
other internal organ may, and as such, is sometimes observed 
in post-mortem examinations. Congestion of the lungs is more 
