LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 139 
reached; and fearful havoc made in the garrison, as indicated by 
the pendulous head persistently turned to one side, or uncon¬ 
sciously dashed about; the amaurotic eye suffused with tears, 
which frequently run down the cheeks; stertorous breathing, 
general insensibility to all stimuli, and the complete loss of all 
voluntary muscular power , in short, the carcase lies a mere log, 
dead in all the organs except the one having its motor supply 
from the nervous system of organic life—the heart; it is always 
the last to yield. 
This is apoplexy as I have observed it, and it is no fancy 
picture or fictitious case I have sketched. Such cases are of 
almost weekly occurrence with me, and at all seasons, for I do 
not believe that temperature has anything at all to do in its pro¬ 
duction. Indeed, I have as many in the months of December 
and January as in June or July. 
All cases, however, do not go on to apoplexy, but the apo¬ 
plectic stage is generally reached before w r e are called in, and 
indeed before the animals are observed to be ailing; unless the 
owner may have had frequent losses, causing him thereby to watch 
them closer. But of all cases that I have watched from the com¬ 
mencement this has been the course of the disease, which con¬ 
vinces me that we have no sudden case of collapse, commencing 
at the brain, induced by aortic pressure or anatomical formation, 
either anaemic or congestive, but that it is of a progressive type 
commencing at the periphery and gradually reaching the centre. 
We have seen that all the minute blood-vessels at the extremi¬ 
ties of the circulation are under the control of the ganglionic 
system of nerves; we have seen also that they are the. principal 
nerves presiding over nutrition and secretion—notably so—the 
secretion of milk. Now, it is a well-known law 7 in the animal 
economy that whenever there is a great excitement in the system 
it is succeeded by a corresponding depression. Upon this fact 
in physiology hangs, I think, the explanation of this theory of 
the disease. 
The first stage of this disease is characterised by excitement of 
the udder. There is a determination of blood to it by what is 
knowm as sympathetic action. However we may theorise and 
speculate on aortic pressure, undoubtedly the great volume of 
blood finds its way to the udder, even before the act of parturi¬ 
tion commences, and always before it is concluded. Now this is 
most noticeable in heavy milkers, and it is in them only that we 
have the disease; and where the ganglionic system is largely 
developed. 
The excitement of the parturient act is followed by a copious 
secretion of milk, but in consequence of this very copiousness of 
secretion and the peculiar susceptibility of the ganglionic system 
