MILK FEVER.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 298, 25 July 1929, Page 1

MILK FEVER.

METHOD OF TREATMENT. For several years milk fever treatment has consisted of the inflation of the udder with filtered air. and the si(lministration of stimulant, says the Weekly Times, Melbourne. As a result of a new theory, which is investigated. treatment may be radically altered in the near future. The cause has only been a conjecture, one of the most plausible reasons given was that an anaemia of the brain was caused by the flush of blood in the udder. The name of the disease popularly given is a misnomer, for there is no fever-y rather the opposite. The new theory is that the condition is due to an inter ference with the calcium content of the blood.

Milk of course, contains much calcium in the "orm of salts, and the sudden diversion of those salts from the blood to, the milk is said to cau'O an intoxication of the brain. If this is so, the inflation of the udder, which causes a cessation of a milk secretion, and so restores the calcium content of the blood, will, in future, be augmented by administration of calcium salts hypoder mieally. This might mean all the dif ference to those cases wh'ch obstinately resist all other lines of treatment. Incidentally, it may be interesting to ol> serve that, although milk fever has occurred in cows on their thiru calf and .after, and in the first few days after calving, it can also occur just before calving and any time up to six monihs after calving.