VETERINARY PROBLEMS. 39 



say with certainty whether there has been an opportunity for 

 their cows to be infected or not. 



Mr. Ware. The case stated by Mr. Bowditch calls to 

 my mind one of a similar character. In my younger days, 

 before this disease was very prominent, I had charge of a 

 herd of cows, and among the milkers was a man who was 

 very harsh. I always milked with the men, and one morn- 

 ing I noticed that this man struck two of the cows with his 

 milkiug-stool on the part of her body where the calf would 

 naturally lie, to make them stand round. I cautioned him 

 about it, and that day, when the cows were turned out to 

 pasture, those two cows aborted, evidently from mechanical 

 injury. There seemed to be a panic of abortion at once in 

 that herd. They commenced bellowing and running around 

 the pasture, and within two or three hours, if I remember 

 rightly, there were as many as four more cows aborted in the 

 pasture. I felt that the trouble in this case was sympathetic, 

 caused by the two cows that aborted from mechanical in- 

 jury. There were no indications of anything of the kind, 

 but it came from sympathy, and from the panic that seemed 

 to pervade the whole herd ; and the result was, that within 

 an hour or two, there were four heifers, making six in all, 

 that aborted. That was the end of it. This was at a time 

 earlier than the period within which what has been called 

 " the disease," has been so prevalent. It was something 

 that was not known much about, except by accident ; but in 

 watching those animals, it seemed to me that it was caused, 

 in all except the first two, by sympathy with the heifers that 

 first aborted, where the abortion was caused by mechanical 

 injury. Mr. Bowditch's case seems to correspond with the 

 one I have mentioned. There was a heifer taken to the 

 barn, and the smell was sufl^cient to afiect the cow, and the 

 result was about the same, although the cause of the abortion 

 in the first instance was not mechanical injury. That was a 

 very interesting case to me. I have often thought of it, and 

 it seems to me that sympathy in a herd has a great deal to 

 do with it. Instead of its being contagious, it may be ac- 

 counted for from that cause. 



The Chairman. Dr. Salmon is obliged to leave at once,, 

 in order to attend to his duties in the department at Wash- 



