PARTURIENT PARESIS. 
395 
hypotheses. If it be true that so essential a bond exists between 
a too rapid uterine contraction and parturient paresis, then there 
must be such antecedent conditions to each case of the disease. 
This is not, however, the case. The os tUeri is as a rule still 
partly open if the disease occurs during the first 24 hours after 
labor. It can also be demonstrated that the uterine contraction 
is fully as slight as is usually the case from this standpoint in 
sound cows. 
To the contrary, it is not infrequently less contracted than 
in health. By means of manual exploration of the genital 
organs of a great number of patients, in which the development 
of parturient paresis occurred after widely varying duration of 
time (hours and days) I came to the conviction that the power 
of uterine contraction is generally normal until the cause of the 
disease begins to insinuate itself, but that the contractility of the 
womb then ceases or is decreased, because its muscular tissue like 
other muscular groups, is paralyzed as soon as the disease has 
begun. If the disease develops a few hours after birth then the 
os is found regularly open, while if the cow has remained sound 
for a day or two after parturition, it is frequently found almost 
closed. Patients are not seldom met with which have had no 
normal appetite for food or drink from the time of parturition 
till the disease first makes itself evident one or two days later 
by symptoms of paralysis ; in these patients it is always found 
that the uterine contractility is diminished. It can, by these 
symptoms alone, almost be determined, even when the history 
is wanting, if a cow suffering from parturient paresis had de¬ 
veloped the primary stages of the malady immediately after 
calf-birth. I have observed these relations for a number of 
years and could therefore cite many cases in support of it. 
I assume, though, that it will suffice to refer to the case re¬ 
ports which follow later, in which observations are included re¬ 
garding the state of contractility of the womb. 
Besides we find now and then—Franck freely admits : very 
rarely—cases in which the afterbirth has not yet been expelled, 
when they have come under treatment for parturient paralysis. 
