156 DISEASES OF CATTLE, SHEEP, GOATS, ETC. 



fection. Similarly with the immature bull put to too many cows ; he 

 fails to develop his full size, vigor, or stamina, and transfers his ac- 

 quired weakness to his progeny. An increasing number of barren 

 females and an increasing proclivity to abortions are the necessary 

 results of both courses. When this early breeding has occurred ac- 

 cidentally it is well to dry up the dam just after calving, and to avoid 

 having her served again until full grown. 



Some highly fed and plethoric females seem to escape concep- 

 tion by the very intensity of the generative ardor. The frequent 

 passage of urine, accompanied by contractions of the womb and 

 vagina and a profuse secretion from their surfaces, leads to the ex- 

 pulsion of the semen after it has been lodged in the genital passages. 

 This may 'be remedied somewhat by bleeding the cow shortly before 

 putting to the bull, so as to diminish the richness and stimulating 

 quality of the blood; or better by giving 1% pounds of Epsom salts 

 a day or two before she comes in heat, and subjecting her at the same 

 time to a spare diet. Should the excessive ardor of the cow not be 

 controllable in this way, she may be shut up for a day or two, until 

 the heat is passing off, when under the lessened excitement the semen 

 is more likely to be retained. 



The various diseases of the ovaries, their tubes, the womb, the 

 testicles and their excretory ducts, as referred to under "Excess of 

 generative ardor," are causes of barrenness. In this connection it 

 may be named that the discharges consequent on calving are fatal to 

 the vitality of semen introduced before these have ceased to flow; 

 hence service too soon after calving, or that of a cow which has had 

 the womb or genital passages injured so as to keep up a muco- 

 purulent flow until the animal comes in heat, is liable to fail of con- 

 ception. Any such discharge should be first arrested by repeated in- 

 jections as for leucorrhea, after which the male may be admitted. 



Feeding on a very saccharine diet, which greatly favors the 

 deposition of fat, seems to have an even more direct effect in prevent- 

 ing conception during such regimen. Among other causes of bar- 

 renness are all those that favor abortion, ergoted grasses, smutty 

 wheat or corn, laxative or diuretic drinking water, and any improper 

 or musty feed that causes indigestions, colics, and diseases of the 

 urinary organs, notably gravel; also savin, rue, cantharides, and all 

 other irritants of the bowels or kidneys. 



Hermaphrodites are barren, of course, as their sexual organs are 

 not distinctively either male or female. The heifer born as a twin 

 is usually hermaphrodite and barren. But the animals of either sex 

 in which development of the organs is arrested before they are fully 

 matured remain as in the male or female prior to puberty, and are 

 barren. Bulls with both testicles retained within the abdomen may 

 go through the form of serving a cow, but the service is unfruitful ; 

 the spermatozoa are not fully elaborated. So I have examined a 

 heifer with a properly formed but very small womb and an extremely 

 narrow vagina and vulva, the walls of which were very muscular, that 

 could never be made to conceive. A post-mortem examination would 



