Puerperal Fits
Nature, proportions the power and resources of the mother to the wants of her offspring. In her wild undomesticated state she is able to suckle her progeny to the full time; but, in the artificial state in which we have placed her, we shorten the interval between each period of parturition, we increase the number of her young ones at each birth, we diminish her natural powers of affording them nutriment, and we give her a degree of irritability which renders her whole system liable to be excited and deranged by causes that would otherwise be harmless: therefore it happens that, when the petted bitch is permitted to suckle the whole of her litter, her supply of nutriment soon becomes exhausted, and the continued drain upon her produces a great degree of irritability. She gets rapidly thin; she staggers, is half unconscious, neglects her puppies, and suddenly falls into a fit of a very peculiar character. It begins with, and is sometimes confined to, the respiratory apparatus: she lies on her side and pants violently, and the sound of her laboured breathing may be heard at the distance of twenty yards. Sometimes spasms steal over her limbs; at other times the diaphragm and respiratory muscles alone are convulsed. In a few hours she is certainly lost; or, if there are moments of remission, they are speedily succeeded by increased heavings.
The practitioner unaccustomed to this fearful state of excitation, and forgetful or unaware of its cause, proceeds to bleed her, and he seals her fate. Although one system is thus convulsively labouring, it is because others are suddenly and perfectly exhausted; and by abstraction of the vital current he reduces this last hold of life to the helpless condition of the rest. There is not a more common or fatal error than this.
The veterinary practitioner is unable to apply the tepid bath to his larger patients, in order to quiet the erythism of certain parts of the system, and produce an equable diffusion of nervous influence and action; and he often forgets it when he has it in his power to save the smaller ones. Let the bitch in a fit be put into a bath, temperature 96° Fahrenheit, and covered with the water, her head excepted. It will he surprising to see how soon the simple application of this equable temperament will quiet down the erythism of the excited system. In ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, she may be taken out of the bath evidently relieved, and then, a hasty and not very accurate drying having taken place, she is wrapped in a blanket and placed in some warm situation, a good dose of physic having been previously administered. She soon breaks out in a profuse perspiration. Everything becomes gradually quiet, and she falls into a deep and long sleep, and at length awakes somewhat weak, but to a certain degree restored.
If, then, all her puppies except one or two are taken from her, and her food is, for a day or two, somewhat restricted, and after that given again of its usual quantity and kind, she will live and do well; but a bleeding at the time of her fit, or suffering all her puppies to return to her, will inevitably destroy her.
A bitch that was often brought to my house was suckling a litter of puppies. She was foolishly taken up and thrown into the Serpentine in the month of April. The suppression of milk was immediate and complete. There was also a determination to the head, and attacks resembling epilepsy. The puppies that were suffered to remain with the mother, were very soon as epileptic as she was, and were destroyed. A seton was inserted on each side of her neck. Ipecacuanha was administered; and that having sufficiently worked, a small quantity of diluted sulphuric acid was given. A fortnight afterwards she was perfectly well.
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