530 
DROPPING AFTER CALVING. 
ditions, and the secretions—manifestly that of the milk—as 
well as the excretion are speedily resumed. 
Not the least remarkable thing is the rapidity with which 
a favorable change takes place. We have often left animals, de¬ 
spairing almost entirely of their restoration, and have returned 
within three or four hours and found them standing with 
scarcely an unfavorable symptom present. The only ex¬ 
planation which can be given of these cases is that the con¬ 
gested slate of the blood-vessels of the brain and spinal 
marrow had quickly yielded, and a free circulation of the 
blood been re-established. 
Post-Mortem Appearances. —It may be correctly 
affirmed that had veterinary surgeons earlier followed up their 
observations on the symptoms and progress of parturient 
apoplexy by searching post-mortem examinations, its true 
pathology would sooner have been recognised. In bygone 
days it was too much the custom for opinions to be drawn of 
he nature of almost all internal maladies, simply from the 
lesions which were to be detected either in the abdomen or 
chest. In this way we account for the long existing opinion 
that parturient apoplexy of the cow was of the same nature 
as puerperal fever of the human female, viz. that essentially 
it consisted of inflammation of the uterus and peritoneum. 
Rarely, however, will it be observed that even the uterus 
itself presents conditions which would not have been noticed 
had the cow suffered no illness of any kind, but been slaugh¬ 
tered within the period of calving that the attack usually 
comes on. Now and then a blush of redness will be seen on 
its peritoneal surface, limited in extent, and due merely to a 
hypersemic condition of its vessels. In no case have we met 
with diffused inflammation of the peritoneum, nor of the 
coats of any of the abdominal viscera. 
The liver sometimes gives evidence of congestion, and the 
mucous membvane of the fourth stomach, and also of the 
intestinal canal, will not unfrequently present here and there 
a slight inflammatory biush, which owes its origin in most 
cases to the large doses of cathartic and other medicinal 
agents which had been administered. Now and then also 
the omasum—third stomach—will be found to contain an 
unusual amount of ingesta, which is rather hard and dry— 
a state of things simply due to coma having impaired its 
function and led consequently to retention of its contents. 
The viscera of the chest are more frequently involved in 
morbid action ; but the pleura cannot be said to give evidence 
of true inflammation except under peculiar circumstances. 
The heart, and also the vessels of the lungs, are generally 
