LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 125 
Limiting and defining our subject thus, we will pass on to con¬ 
sider the nature of “parturient apoplexy,” viewed by the light 
of recent reasoning and research, and by facts furnished by 
experience. 
The deductive method in medicine is fast giving place to the 
inductive. Hypothesis must give place to facts, and from facts 
we must rise to general inferences, if we wish to found patho¬ 
logical laws on a solid and enduring basis. 
Before noticing some of the established facts in connection 
with this disease it may be as well to pass in review a few of 
the various theories that have been advanced regarding its 
etiology. 
They are necessarily numerous, but we shall only notice a few 
of the most prominent, or those that have taken the greatest 
hold on the public or professional mind. 
There is first the theory of debility or weakness. 
2nd. The septic theory. 
3rd. The anatomical theory, and 
4th. The ganglionic theory. 
First, the theory of debility or weakness. This is scarcely 
worthy of being called a theory, or of being brought under your 
notice. It is so called on account of the most prominent symp¬ 
toms of the disease : the inability to rise or stand, but does 
not attempt to fathom the cause of this debility. I should not 
have brought it to your notice were it not that it has possession 
of the minds of a great number of people in the Eastern 
counties, and even some members and a Fellow of the Boyal 
College of Veterinary Surgeons, and the theory they propound 
is only equalled in inanity by the treatment they prescribe— 
viz. to abstain from milking any animal for a day or two after 
calving, for say they —“ If you milk them you weaken them and 
cause them to drop !” I never could meet with any one, either 
member or fellow, who could give any explanation of how the 
taking away of formed material in the shape of milk from any 
animal, especially when the gland is distended, could produce 
or account for any of the symptoms of this disease. Such 
treatment if extensively carried out would threaten the extinction 
of the bovine race; for it is the principal object of the secretion, as 
destined by nature, to nourish the offspring, and if this be denied 
them, as it must be, if they carry out their theory, their numbers 
would assuredly decline and the survivors sadly deteriorate. 
One can scarcely help wondering how such ideas could 
be seriously entertained, and it is astounding to think that at 
this time of day there should be a member or Fellow of the Royal 
College of Veterinary Surgeons so ignorant of the facts and well- 
recognised laws of physiology and pathology. Yet it is so. 
