126 LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
In connection with this, and in contrast thereto, I may mention 
the procedure of a practical man. Most of you will have heard 
of a Mr. Fowler, a large importer of Alderney and Guernsey 
cows, which are regarded by some as very susceptible of this 
disease. Well, his preventative for it is to never allow the cows 
to go dry, but keep milking them right on to calving, and it 
is reported that he has never had a case since he adopted this 
plan. 
Secondly, the theory of septiceemia. 
This theory presupposes the development within the system 
of a poisonous principle, bacterial or otherwise, arising from the 
retained lochial discharges, or the retrogade metamorphosis of 
uterine tissue. 
It is closely connected with the theory of fatty degeneration, 
lately propounded by an American brother, who described it as 
an immense development of fatty particles within the muscular 
fasciculi, so as to diminish the contractile power of the 
muscles; that after the expulsion of the foetus the uterine 
muscles are unable to contract sufficiently, and the retained 
debris goes on to putrefaction, which is suddenly absorbed and 
developed the disease. It is true that the muscular fibres of the 
uterus undergo, after parturition, a fatty metamorphosis, in con¬ 
sequence of which they almost all melt down and disappear, 
so that in the brief space of a week or ten days the whole 
again dwindles down and diminishes .to nearly its original 
dimensions. It is a well-known fact a mare will conceive again, 
and as readily as at any time, on the ninth day after parturition. 
But this is a normal process, purely physiological in its origin, 
and takes place in all healthy subjects; and it so happens that 
in cases of this disease—parturient apoplexy—the uterus seems 
to be well advanced in this retrograde metamorphosis. So that 
it is evident we must look somewhere else for a cause. Nor 
does the theory of the development of a toxic agent within the 
system find any confirmation in the history, symptoms, or appear¬ 
ances of a typical case of the disease. 
I confess that finding albumen in the urine on several occa¬ 
sions I was somewhat inclined to a similar view, but recent cases 
in which it has been absent have convinced me that it is by no 
means a constant factor in the disease. 
Although it be always present in puerperal convulsions in the 
human female, and in connection with para - and hemiplegia — 
indeed is an acknowledged fact in obstetric pathology. 
If the disease were of septic origin we should find it after 
difficult and first parturitions, wdiere the traumatic lesions favour 
the development of toxamia , and where albuminuria is a constant 
condition, 
