454 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
predispose the animals that even the weaker germ will operate v/ith 
destructive effect. In dealing with this disease, therefore, it is the part 
of wisdom not to rest satisfied with the discovery and removal of one 
specific cause, but rather to exert by correcting all the harmful conditions. 
CAUSES OF NON-CONTAGIOUS ABORTION. 
As abortion most frequently occurs at those three-week intervals at 
which the cow would have been in heat if nonpregnant, we may assume 
a predisposition at such times due to a periodicity in the nervous system 
and functions. Poor condition, weakness, and a too watery state cf the 
blood is often a predisposing cause. This in its turn may result from 
poor or insfficient food, from the excessive drain upon the udder while 
bearing the calf, from the use of food deficient in certain essential ele- 
ments, like the nitrogenous constituents or albuminoids, from chronic 
wasting diseases, from roundworms or tapeworms in the bowels, from 
flate Vvorms (flukes, trematodes) in the liver, from worms in the lungs, 
from dark, damp, unhealthy buildings, etc. In some such cases the nourish- 
ment is so deficient that the fetus dies in the womb and is expelled in 
consequence. Excessive loss of blood, attended as it usually is by shock, 
becomes a direct cause of abortion. Acute inflammations of important 
organs are notorious causes of abortion, and in most contagious fevers 
(lung plague, rinderpest, foot and mouth disease) it is a common result. 
Affections of the chest which pervent due aeration of the blood induce 
contractions of the womb, as shown experimentally by Brown-Sequard. 
Pregnant women suffcated in smoke aborted in many cases (Retoul). 
Chronic diseases of the abdominal organs are fertile sources of abor- 
tion, especially those that cause bloating (tympany of the first stomach) 
or diarrhea, or the diseases of the ovaries, kidneys, or bladder. The 
presence of gravel, or stone, in the kidneys, bladders, or urinary canals 
is an especial predisposing or even an exciting cause in magnesium 
limestone districts and in winter. The presence of tubercles in the 
ovaries, the broad ligaments of the womb, and even on the outer surface 
of the womb itself, must be added as efficient causes. 
Fatty degeneration of the heart, a common disease in old cov/s of im- 
proved beef breeds, lessens the circulation in the placenta (and fetus) 
and arresting nutrition, may cause abortion. 
Indigestions of all kinds are especially dangerous, as they are usually 
associated with overdistension of the first stomach (paunch) with gas. 
As this stomach lies directly beneath and to the left side of the womb 
any disorder, and above all an excessive distention of that organ presses 
on or affects the womb and its contents dangerously. It further causes 
contractions of the womb by preventing aeration of the blood. Hence all 
that tends to indigestion is to be carefully guarded against. Privation 
of water, which hinders rumination and digestion; ice-cold water, which 
rouses the v/omb to contraction and the calf to vigorous movement; green, 
succulent grass, to which the cow has been accustomed; clover which has 
just been wet with a slight shower; all green food, roots, potatoes, ap- 
ples, pumpkins that are frozen or have been, or that are simply covered 
with hoar frost; food that has been grown in wet seasons or that has 
