512 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



vation will produce the same effect, but from an opposite cause. 

 Hence it is that when this disposition to abort first appears in a 

 dairy, it is usually in a cow that has been lately purchased. 

 Fright, from whatever cause, may produce abortion. There are 

 singular cases on record of whole herds of cows slinking their 

 calves after being terrified by an unusually violent thunder- 

 storm.* Commerce with the bull, soon after conception, is a 

 frequent cause of abortion. The casting of the calf has already 

 been attributed to the sympathetic influence of the effluvia from 

 the decomposing placenta: there are plenty of instances in which 

 other putrid smells have produced the same effect, and therefore 

 the inmates of crowded cowhouses are not unfrequently subject 

 to this mishap. 



"The consequences of premature calving, are frequently of a 

 very serious nature. It has been stated that there is often con- 

 siderable spasmodic closure of the mouth of the uterus, and that 

 the calf is produced with much difficulty and pain, and espe- 

 cially if a few days have elapsed after the death of the young 

 one. "When this is the case the mother frequently dies, or her 

 recovery is much slower than after natural parturition. The 

 coat continues rough and staring for a long time ; the skin clings 

 to the ribs; the appetite does not return, and the milk is dried up. 

 Some internal chronic complaint now takes its rise, and the 

 foundation is laid for consumption and death. 



"When the case is more favorable, the results are, neverthe- 

 less, often annoying. The cow very soon goes again to heat, 

 but in a great many cases she fails to become pregnant ; she 

 almost certainly does so if she is put to the bull during the first 



* " Instructions Veterinaries, vol. 6, p. 154. Dr. Rndge, in his ' Survey of Glouces- 

 tershire,' says, that there was an enlosnre near Arlingham, close to which was a 

 dog-kennel. Eight heifers and cows out of twenty aborted, in consequence, as it 

 was supposed by the farmer of the frequent exposure of flesh, and the skinning of 

 dead horses before them. The remainder were removed to a distant pasture and 

 did well." 



