158 
INCOGNITUS. 
To briefly recapitulate it will be observed that in women a 
laige percentage of the cases are in priinaparse, generally in con¬ 
nection with a difficult parturition, and most frequently during 
delivery and especially in the periods of dilatation and expulsion ; 
while in cows it never occurs in priinaparse, nor in connection 
with a difficult parturition, and it is seldom seen within twenty- 
four hours after delivery. Again, in women there appears, in a 
majority of the cases, to be a direct connection between the act 
of parturition and the disease, great and general irritability of the 
neivoussystem, and more or less rapidly recurring convulsions; 
while in cows there is no direct connection between the act of 
parturition and disease, the general irritability of the nervous 
system is entirely wanting,” and genuine convulsions are seldom 
or never seen. Robust, young, and nervous women, and mature, 
plethoric, and deep milking cows ars more liable to this affection 
than those of opposite classes; in fact a plethoric maturity seems 
to be an essential factor in the etiology of the disease in cows, 
while in women the disease, in its nature, appears to be essentially 
a reflex neurosis, probably resulting from stenosis. 
Notwithstanding the universally accepted dogmas of eminent 
vetci inarians to the contrary, we are by the foregoing facts irres- 
istably drawn to the conclusion that eclampsia parturientum in 
women and parturient apoplexy in cows are entirely different 
diseases, produced by different causes, and presenting very diffier- 
ent phenomena. 
The theory which, above all others, is least sustained by facts 
and most puiely the work of the imagination is that propounded 
by Barlow and vigorously supported by Williams, and of which 
the latter says : The arrest of the lactiferous secretion is doubt¬ 
less due to some disturbance of the organic system of nerves, but 
how this aiises is difficult to determine unless we take into con- 
sideiation that the great sympathetic is developed to a greater ex¬ 
tent in deep milkers than in other cattle, and that in consequence 
it is more susceptible and more prone to derangement from 
trivial causes.” 
Where the lactiferous apparatus is more highly developed the 
logical inference is that the portion of the sympathetic nervous 
