608 ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
view is not accepted by all, for Hering pretends that it also, 
though rarely, attacks the mare, ewe, goat, and sow. Accord¬ 
ing to Spinola, the malady has been also observed in other 
animals. Roll pretends having observed it in the go’at. 
Nevertheless, these eminent authors confine their description 
of it to the cow. As to the organ first attacked, the author, 
after having passed in review the opinions of the most dis¬ 
tinguished writers on the subject, finds that the pathological 
manifestations described, however grave and numerous, do 
not permit a solution of this question. The opinions on the 
nature and seat of the disease are as numerous as they are 
various. The most rational opinion seems to be that of 
Kohne, who considers it as a paralysis of the ganglionic 
nervous system, extending speedily to the spinal cord and 
the brain; this opinion is shared by Carsten Harms and 
Wannovius; according to the latter, the origin of this paraly¬ 
sis is in the uterus. Finally, Roll considers it a functional 
disturbance of the brain followed by paralysis. 
The same divergency of opinion exists as to the etiology of 
the malady in which three categories of causes are dis¬ 
tinguished:— 1st, predisposing; 2ndly, direct; Srdly, occa¬ 
sional. It is unnecessary to add that, in the first category, 
gestation is the prominent cause, and without which the 
malady could not manifest itself. This, and previous attacks, 
tendency to an abundant secretion of milk, or superabundant 
alimentation, on the ground that lean and badly kept cows 
are seldom attacked with puerperal typhus, are the chief 
predisposing causes. A special predisposition has not been 
ascertained in cows fed on grains or provender from 
artificial meadows, or provender badly got in, maw burnt, 
&c. Although it frequently prevails in certain localities, 
it cannot be ascribed to atmospheric influences. Amongst 
the direct causes, the compression exercised on the nerves 
of the uterus, or on the sacral region, has been con¬ 
sidered as one. Sudden decrease of the abdomen, poison in 
the blood, absorption of the sanious fluid in the uterus after 
the expulsion of the foetus, &c.,—all these are reviewed by 
the author. Concerning the occasional causes veterinary 
literature contains nothing positive; the sophism of the pod 
hoc, ergo propter hoc, is often applied in the enumeration and 
appreciation of these causes; amongst these the chilling of 
the skin, owing to a diminution in the temperature, atmo¬ 
spheric changes,and currents of air, repletion of the rumen, and 
the other gastric viscera, an irregular discharge of the lochias, 
a superlacteal secretion after parturition, the separation of 
the calf from its mother, and a sudden change in the diet. 
