SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY SOCIETY. 
70 
afternoon of Saturday, the 17tli of August, the owner (owing to 
ner high condition) having given her a dose of cathartic medicine 
the previous day. She died at 4.30 a.m. on Sunday, the attendant 
stating that f she beat her head about fearfully before dying/ 
Mr. Aitken made a post-mortem examination on the morning of 
Monday, the 19th inst., and found all the abdominal and thoracic 
viscera healthy, with a dead calf in the uterus; her time was not 
up until the 20th. I made a careful examination of the head, 
but unfortunately allowed it to lay too long before doing so, the 
brain being partially decomposed. I however discovered that the 
internal coat of both carotids and their branches was sheathed 
with a partially organised fibrinous deposit; large quantities of 
serum also flowed from the foramen magnum, and there was 
satisfactory evidence of a large amount of congestion of the 
superficial vessels of the brain. Prom the decomposed state of 
the brain, I could not detect any structural evidence of the former 
attack of apoplexy. I have for some time thought that there 
might be some difference in the anatomical arrangement of the 
arteries of the brain in the cow and mare, to account for the fact 
that the former animal was subject to parturient apoplexy and the 
latter not, and have made several dissections to satisfy myself on 
this point, and am now engaged on an injected specimen which 
will tend to settle the matter either one way or the other. So 
far as I have gone, I can discover no vessel corresponding to the 
ramus anastomoticus of the horse, and believe that the basilar is 
formed by the vertebrals, in which case the force with which the 
blood is propelled into the cephalic arteries (especially at the time 
of parturition, and taking into consideration the shorter neck of 
the cow, with the more pendulous or level position of the head) 
will be greater than in the mare; thus tending to serious com¬ 
plication, and rendering the brain of the cow more susceptible of 
disturbing influences.” 
The discussion which followed was but slight; the members 
present, while expressing the pleasure with which they had listened 
to and perused Professor Walleyes essay, and giving him every 
credit for the very able manner in which he had treated the 
subject, and admitting to a certain extent the plausibility of his 
views as to the nature of parturient apoplexy (which, according 
to Professor Williams, were somewhat analogous to those held at 
one time by the late Professor Barlow), were, nevertheless, appa¬ 
rently of opinion that the disease arose chiefly in consequence of 
the strict almost stationary confinement in which the animals are 
kept, and derangement of the digestive organs from that or any 
other cause at the time of parturition. 
Professor Walley , in reply, stated that he of course admitted 
that confinement and derangement of the organs of digestion were 
