DROPPING AFTER CALVING. 
571 
dentally I heard, through one of the medical officers stationed 
at Fort George, that the water, as we know also from the 
last Army Medical Report, had been in a very dangerous 
state. After starting the filter it was again analysed, when 
the condition was found to be “ highly satisfactory.” Now 
this is only chemical evidence, but we may perhaps assume 
that the result, as shown by chemical analysis, would 
scarcely have given such satisfaction had not some beneficial 
influence on health been at the same time observed. 
Unfortunately it is, I am afraid, of no use applying for an 
official report. I did this once before, when the Secretary 
for War, “ to prevent precedents, declined to lay a similar 
report on the table of the House of Commons. With all due 
deference, I submit that this is to be regretted. Just as well 
as the connection between pollution of a water-supply and 
disease can only be proved by a large number of cases can 
the influence of any system of water purification on health be 
solely definitively settled by oft-repeated experience. This, 
therefore, should not be withheld, but any such practical ex¬ 
perience relating to purely sanitary matters should at once 
become the property of the nation .—Sanitary Record. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISEASE OF THE COW, COM¬ 
MONLY KNOWN AS DROPPING AFTER CALVING. 
By James Beaut Simonds, Principal of the Royal Veterinary College. 
Under various names, such as Drop, Dropping after 
calving, Milk fever, Puerperal fever, Adynamic fever, Partu¬ 
rient apoplexy, &c., a fatal disease attacking the cow shortly 
after or even occasionally before or at the time of parturition 
has long been recognised. 
In days gone by the pathology of the malady was very im¬ 
perfectly understood, and consequently the most conflicting 
opinions thereon were promulgated by writers on cattle 
pathology, as well as by practitioners of veterinary medicine. 
Even in the present day it cannot be said that a uniformity 
of opinion prevails, many persons still clinging to the views 
which were first advanced by the late Mr. Youatt, in his 
work on ‘ Cattle: their Breeds, Management, and Diseases' 
(1834), viz, that “this disease is primarily inflammation of 
the womb or of the peritoneum, but that it afterwards assumes 
an intensity of character truly specific/' With more correct 
views, however, other authors and practitioners now regard 
