Contagious Abortion. 379 



the disease before and become in some measure immune, that 

 they were dry during the experiment, and were subjected to no 

 extraneous excitement that would predispose them to abort. The 

 presumption is that had the experiments been started earlier in 

 the gestation, the abortion would have come in due time. The 

 microbe maintained its hold on the mucosa and continued to 

 advance up to and beyond parturition. 



Another distinction of the European abortions, is in the pres- 

 ence of the microbe in European form in the digestive organs of 

 the calf, and that the viable calves of infected cows are liable to 

 die of intestinal disorders a few days after birth. Galtier, the 

 Marquis de Poncius and Pry insist strongly on this. On a farm 

 on the estate of the Marquis, where abortion had prevailed for 

 twenty years, the calves of infected cows show at birth, or very 

 shortly after, symptoms of broncho-pneumonia and of a complica- 

 tion of nervous disorders. They are breathless, wheeze, dis- 

 charge from the nose, cough, scour, have convulsions or other 

 nervous trouble. A large proportion of such calves die ; and 

 their lungs are found in part red, consolidated and devoid of air 

 and the bronchia contain a mucopurulent product. Lesions 

 denoting inflammation of the serosse of the lungs, liver and intes- 

 tines are common. This coincidence of a fatal disease in many of 

 the surviving calves is exceptional among the aborting herds of 

 New York. 



In noting the evidence of a wide difference between the preva- 

 lent American and European forms of abortion in cows, one 

 should be prepared to go farther, and accept if need be, still other 

 distinctive forms in each of the two continents. Any catarrhal 

 condition of the uterine mucous membrane, is a recognized hin- 

 drance to conception, and cause of abortion, and we must recognize 

 that the forms of invasion of the womb hy pus microbes are as 

 numerous as there are irritant germs capable of living in the mem- 

 brane. The question as to how many of these can produce con- 

 tagious abortion is to be determined by the susceptibity of the 

 membrane to irritation by each germ, and whether the latter can 

 retain all its power of survival and virulence in passing from one 

 animal to another. The presumption is, therefore, in favor of a 

 variety of forms of contagious abortion, each due to its own spe- 

 cific microbe or microbes, rather than of a single unvarying type 



