PARTURIENT APOPLEXY 
13 
k i 
milky secretion lias stopped ; there is general paralysis ; tiie rumen 
and the intestines have lost their peristaltic motions ; the circula¬ 
tion is increased; the heart bounds; the respiration is slow; there 
is first paraplegia, and afterwards convulsions. Breuter, Gablis, 
Donnellus and Festal have seen the paraplegia absent, and the 
cases then were complicated witli amaurosis. 
The prognosis, though varying, and always very serious, must 
in some cases be guarded, as while fatal results may take place in 
a few hours, recovery has so occurred in a short time. The 
thermometer may assist considerably on this point, as the rapid 
dropping of the temperature, after a sudden elevation, is gen¬ 
erally a bad omen. 
Pathological anatomy .— Nature —The neglect of post mortem 
examinations of animals which have died or have been slaught¬ 
ered, may account for the ignorance of the nature of this disease 
in times past. But since 1856 it has been established that vitular 
fever rarely arises from traumatic lesions connected with delivery, 
since the disease has made its appearance as well after natural 
parturition as after the most difficult case of distocia. 
Yiborg, Roell, Stockfelt and Zundel have frequently found 
the uterus greatly enlarged, with its walls thickened and flabby, 
and the mucous membrane much injected. Decomposed lochia 
have also been found in the organs, with foetid sanious fluid, and 
a mixture of blood, mucosities and coagula, with remains of the 
foetal envelop; the cotyledons are large, dark red and resembling 
small sponges, and the veins of the uterus are varicose, containing 
small clots, probably the starting points of embolisms in various 
parts of the body. 
Boell alone ( says he found phlebitis and pus in the veins. The 
ovaries and fallopian tubes are altered ; the peritoneal cavity is 
tilled with purulent serosity or contains floating masses of coagu¬ 
lated fibrine. This has been attributed by some to a sort of 
metastatic action, produced by the milk, and on this account Roell 
had named the disease milk fever. 
Nothing abnormal is found about the nervous centers; the 
same being true of human puerperal fever. Sero-purulent effu¬ 
sions of the pleura and of the meninges have been noticed by 
