250 Artifieial Insemination 



aud pharmaceutical scales, of implements suitable only for home use. 

 As artificial insemination of horses was included in the daily work of 

 veterinary surgeons, often being done without any remuneration, only 

 one day a week was often devoted to it, and sometimes the whole work 

 did not go further than one or two visits of the surgeon. For anyone 

 familiar with the conditions of pairing it is clear that work is impossible 

 under such circumstances, as, apart from the method of insemination, 

 they must lead to a considerable reduction of the percentage of concep- 

 tions, owing to the impossibility of repeating the insemination on the 

 fresh appearance of "heat" in the mare. In other cases, the lowering of 

 the proportion of conceptions was due to injections into the womb being 

 repeated every 7-9 days, wliicli was bound to cause an early abortion 

 where conception had already set in. Further, at many stations for 

 artificial insemination, stallions were used which were known to be un- 

 suitable for this purpose, as in natural insemination the percentage of 

 conceptions from them did not exceed 13 and in some cases was less 

 than 4. It is true that, as has been ascertained, the percentage of 

 conceptions from the same stallions with artificial insemination rose from 

 4 to 11, from 5 to 22, from 13 to 21, but the use of such specimens was 

 bound to lower the general proportion of conception from artificial 

 insemination. Finally, artificial insemination was performed mainly on 

 mares very unreliable from the breeder's point of view, or known to be 

 sterile. 



The work was carried on chiefly on Rural Councils' pairing stations, 

 in villages tens, and sometimes hundreds, of miles distant from town or 

 railway station. 



During the period 1909-1913 artificial insemination was performed, 

 according to the data supplied by the questionnaire, on 6804 horses*. 



In 1909 on 3 stations 57 horses. 



The information for 1913, as pointed out above, is by no means 

 complete. 



With regard to the normal condition of the young, freedom from 

 infection of the sexual organs of the mares in the practice of artificial 

 insemination, low proportion of abortions, etc., the data supplied by the 



' The above figurea refer only to European Russia. 



