456 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
The riding of one another by cows is attended by such severe muscular 
exertion, jars, jolts, mental excitement, and gravitation of the womb and 
abdominal organs backward that it may easily cause abortion in a pre- 
disposed animal. 
Keeping in stalls that slope too much behind (over 2 inches) acts in 
the same way, the compression due to lying and the gravitation backward 
proving more than a predisposed cow can safely bear. 
Deep gutters being in the stalls, into which one or both hind limbs 
slip unexpectedly, strain the loins and jar the body and womb most in- 
juriously. Slippery stalls in which the flooring boards are laid longi- 
tudinally in place of transversely, and on which no cleats or other device 
is adopted to give a firm foothold, are almost equally dangerous. Driving 
on icy ground or through a narrow doorway where the abdomen is liable 
to be jammed are other common causes. Offensive odors undoubtedly 
cause abortion. To understand this one must take into account the pre- 
ternaturally acute sense of smell possessed by cattle. By this sense the 
bull instantly recognizes the pregnant cow and refrains from disturbing 
her, while man, with all his boasted skill and precise methods, finds it 
difficult to come to a just conclusion. The emanations from a cow in 
heat, however, w-ill instantly draw the bull from a long distance. Car- 
rion in the pasture fields or about slaughter houses nearby, the emana- 
tions from shallow graves, dead rats or chickens about the barns, and 
dead calves, the product of prior abortions, are often chargeable v/ith the 
occurrence of abortions. Aborting cows often fail to expel the afterbirth, 
and if this remains hanging in a putrid condition it is most injurious to 
pregnant cows in the near vicinity. So with retained afterbirth in other 
cows after calving. That some cows kept in filthy stables or near-by 
slaughter houses may become inured to the odors and escape the evil 
results is no disproof of the injurious effects so often seen in such cases. 
The excitement, jarring, and jolting of a railroad journey will often 
cause abortion, especially as the cow nears the period of calving, and 
the terror or injury of railway or other accidents prove incomparably 
worse. 
All irritant poisons cause abortions by the disorder and inflammation 
of the digestive organs, and if such agents act also on the kidneys or 
womb, the effect is materially enhanced. Powerful purgatives or diure- 
tics should never be administered to the pregnant cow. 
During pregnancy the contact of the expanding womb with the paunoh, 
just beneath it, and its further intimate connection through nervous 
sympathy with the whole digestive system, leads to various functional 
disorders, and especially to a morbid craving for unnatural objects of 
food. 
In the cow this is shown in the chewing of bones, pieces of wood, iron 
bolts, articles of clothing, lumps of hardened paint, etc. An unsatisfied 
craving of this kind, producing constant excitement of the nervous sys- 
tem, will strongly conduce to abortion. How much more so if the food 
is lacking in the mineral matter, and especially the phosphates necessary 
for the building up of the body of both dam and offspring, to say nothing 
of that drained off in every milking. This state of things is present in 
