milk fever

American  

noun

1. Pathology. fever coinciding with the beginning of lactation, formerly believed to be due to lactation but really due to infection.

2. Veterinary Pathology. an acute disorder of calcium metabolism affecting dairy cows shortly after calving, causing somnolence and paralysis of the hind legs.

---

milk fever British  

noun

1. a fever that sometimes occurs shortly after childbirth, once thought to result from engorgement of the breasts with milk but now thought to be caused by infection

2. Also called: parturient fever.   eclampsia.  vet science a disease of cows, goats, etc, occurring shortly after parturition, characterized by low blood calcium levels, paralysis, and loss of consciousness

---

Etymology

Origin of milk fever

First recorded in 1750–60

Example Sentences

A young veterinary surgeon begins to practice in the remote Yorkshire Dales in 1937, treating abscesses in horses’ hooves and milk fever in cows and prescribing diets for overfed lap dogs.

From New York Times • Jan. 10, 2021

The veterinary who attended the mother for a mild attack of milk fever says the contention, that heifer calves who have a male twin will prove to be sterile, is just a yarn without foundation.

From Time Magazine Archive

Preventing Milk Fever Many excellent cows have been lost through milk fever within a day or two of the birth of the calf.

From Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry by Pratt Food Co.

Having occasion to use all possible precaution against the supervention of milk fever in my patient, I left particular directions that nothing stimulating should be administered, and assigned several good, substantial reasons.

From Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician by Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)

The indirect causes of milk fever exist in any thing that can for a time prevent the free and full play of any part of the animal functions.

From The American Reformed Cattle Doctor by Dadd, George