578 
DROPPING AFTER CALVING. 
and labour been completed by the expulsion of the foetal 
membranes but that she has yielded a fair quantity of milk, 
partaken of her food with an appetite, has ruminated., digested, 
and assimilated it, and voided the fseculent matter in its 
natural condition, and given every other indication of unim¬ 
paired health. Suddenly, however, she is observed to cease 
feeding, to stagger or assume a fixed position, seemingly 
conscious that if she attempts to move she will fall. The 
eyes becomes glassy and amaurotic, and with a bewildered 
stare she recognises her calf for an instant, moans or bellows, 
staggers and falls. With mouth half open, tongue protrud¬ 
ing, breathing laboured, and countenance expressive of intense 
suffering, she will sometimes make two or three ineffectual 
attempts to rise. As a rule, however, she remains down, and 
either throws herself on her side or lies on the belly, with 
the head carried backwards towards the flank, and resting on 
the floor. The body becomes clammy, the extremities cold, 
and the evacuations of faeces and urine cease. The pupilary 
openings of the eyes are dilated, and the vessels of eyelids 
engorged with blood, tears not unfrequently trickling down 
the face. Perfect unconsciousness quickly succeeds, or, in 
medical language, she becomes comatose, and one by one 
the special senses are lost as well as all voluntary move¬ 
ments. 
Coma has been rightly defined to be “ that condition in 
which the functions of animal life are suspended, with the 
exception of the mixed function of respiration; while the 
functions of organic life, and especially of the circulation, 
continue in action. There is neither thought, nor the power 
of voluntary motion nor sensation.Thus it will be ob¬ 
served that in the stricken cow the eyes are insensible to the 
stimulus of light, the limbs to feeling, the ears to sound, and 
the nostrils to the sense of smell. The taste also and the 
power of deglutition are gone, the breathing is difficult and 
stertorous, and the pulse indistinct, wavering, and irregular. 
Besides the loss of swallowing, the implication of the digestive 
organs in the morbid process is shown by the ingesta in the 
rumen passing into a state of fermentation, producing that 
distension of the viscus termed tympanitis. This condition 
of the organ is accompanied with frequent eructations, and 
what is most remarkable in connection with these is the 
passing of ingesta from the rumen into the oesophagus, its 
ascent up the tube to the mouth, and its descent therefrom 
into the windpipe, and ultimately into the ramifications of 
* Dr. Thomas Watson’s 'Lectures on the Principles and Practice of 
Medicine. 
