The toxic character of the colostrum in parturient paresis

Abstract

Parturient paresis is preëminently a disease of plethoric heavy milking breeds of cows, and of those individuals which give the greatest yield of milk. Among the prime and immediate causes of the disease are parturition, a permanent or transient plethoric condition of the blood vessels, with corresponding increase of pressure on the nerve centers of the brain. The phenomenal trophic and secreting activity of the udder of the heavy milker and intense physiological activity of the mammary glands resulting in the sudden rise and absorption into the circulation of leucomaines or toxic alkaloids of the cells of the mammæ. These according to Law 1 are the principal causes operating to bring on an attack of this disease. In the present state of our knowledge it is of little moment whether we call the substances, other than milk, resulting from the sudden disintegrative changes in the udder at or about the time of parturition, leucomaines, alkaloids, toxins, or what not. It seems reasonably certain, however, that there is no gland of the size and physiological activity of the udder of a heavy milking cow, but what must contribute very largely and sometimes malignantly to the internal secretions of the animal.

The question, therefore, immediately before us in the study of parturient paresis and of eclampsia in the woman is to determine experimentally whether the udder and the breast, respectively, do under these acutely toxic conditions actually secrete poisonous substances, which if not quickly eliminated or prevented from entering the circulation might be held responsible for these diseases.

It therefore occurred to one of us, Kastle, 2 to test the conduct of the first fresh colostrum of the cow obtained during an attack of parturient paresis, upon the lower aninials.