LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 141 
sanctioned bj the well known laws of physiology and pathology. 
Instead of being “ far-fetched/’ as Mr. Fleming maintains this 
ganglionic theory is—it is the only one that, in my humble 
opinion, most directly and simply meets the requirements, and 
accounts for all the phenomena of this complicated condition of 
the bovine female. 
In these days of germs and bacteria, we are too apt to look 
beyond the system for some particular entity as the cause of 
disease—that was created and has been living on in the by-past 
eternity, and that will continue to live on in the eternity to come 
—and to forget that after all, what we call disease is a natural 
although an abnormal condition of the body, that in fact patho¬ 
logy is a department of physiology, and the phenomena of disease 
result from the action of the normal structures and forces of the 
body, only modified by morbid conditious. 
In conclusion. Gentlemen, I have to thank you for your kind 
and unwearied attention, for wearied some of you no doubt must 
have been, listening to this dry, and it may be to some of you, 
somewhat unpalatable harangue. If I have wearied your patience, 
I crave your indulgence, and hope you will have your remedy in 
the host of objections you will be able to raise to some of the 
ideas advanced, and the criticisms submitted, so that a good and 
profitable discussion may be envolved, truth may be attained, 
science advanced, and you and I may find our award in the 
consciousness of having done, or tried to do our duty. 
Mr. P. Taylor complimented Mr. Gerrard on the ability he 
had displayed in the production of such an excellent paper—the 
subject was a very interesting and important one to every veteri¬ 
nary surgeon, and their thanks were due to Mr. Gerrard for the 
very scientific and practical manner in which he had treated it. 
The paper was one, which it would have been an honour to any 
professor to have brought before them. He concurred, generally, 
with the views propounded by the essayist, and hoped that they 
would have an opportunity of reading it in the journals—where, 
by a careful study of the theories he had advanced—they would 
be able to derive more benefit than it was possible to do by merely 
having read it once. 
He then gave a brief summary of the symptoms of the disease, 
and the general course of treatment pursued by himself—he had 
seen much of it, and he had treated them in every manner and 
way, but he could not say that he had been much more successful 
with any one mode of treatment than with another. 
In the first stage he gave purgatives combined with stimulants 
and nerve tonics. He never gave any medicine in the comatose 
state, as he considered it dangerous to do so. He applied ex¬ 
ternally, stimulants, hot cloths, and the smoothing iron to the 
