704 
H. S. SMITH. 
with caked udder are also immune to the disease. This theoiy 
is not based upon pathological construction, but is the result of 
a very successful experiment with pot. iodide, being injected 
into the milk glands, through the teats, and who is prepared to 
gainsay that we would obtain the same results by using the 
treatment hypodermically? Yet I think we would all of us be 
inclined to overlook the pathology if our success with the new 
mode of treatment equaled those we see recorded. And I can¬ 
not accept the puerperal septicaemia theory, for reasons which 
are as follows : That if animals of the asthenic type are im¬ 
mune to the disease, and plethoric animals susceptible to it, and 
that by precautionary and preventive treatment, constitutional 
(not germicidal), we can in instances prevent the trouble, and 
most of us have reasons to believe that we have known of in¬ 
stances where we would have been quite sure to expect trouble 
had it not been for these precautionary measures, which in no 
way tended to prevent the propagation of the streptococcus or 
any other germ, whether aerobic or anaerobic, and we cannot 
substantiate this method and prove the germ theory. 
And for these reasons I believe that parturient fever, and 
parturient septicaemia, as described in the human family, are 
entirely different, the former depending upon a constitutional 
condition, and the latter upon a local and septic one, and that 
the cow is much more susceptible to the former than the latter. 
The cause of parturient fever I believe to be one of auto¬ 
intoxication, in the extended sense of the term, and is as differ¬ 
ent from septic intoxication as septic intoxication is from septic 
. infection. I believe it possible to have auto-intoxication with¬ 
out sepsis; pyesis, or pysemic germs, resulting from suddenly 
increased or changed functionary action, of one or more organs 
of the body, but principally the circulation, as in this disease 
we have a perversion of two sets of blood vessels, viz.: By the 
increased volume of circulation to the milk veins, and the 
diminishing of the nutrient supply to the uterus, which during 
the period of gestation, became functional by aiding the process 
of osmosis, which, now, by nature’s command, has ceased, and I 
