224 NORMAL PARTURITIONr 



animals the "water-bag" usually only appears with the first of the litter, 

 the others being preceded or followed by their ruptured membranes. 



The total duration of parturition is, of course, extremely variable, not 

 only according to accidental circumstances, individual peculiarities, and 

 species, but even in the same animal at different births. With the Mare 

 it is usually brief, and is ordinarily accomplished in about ten minutes, 

 sometimes in five ; though it may extend to a quarter or half an hour, 

 rarely more. This rapidity appears to be due to the fact that the placenta 

 is detached from the uterus during the early pains, and consequently the 

 foetus cannot live long after this occurs — three hours being supposed to 

 be the limit — unless it can breathe by the lungs. The duration in the 

 Cow is, on the average, one to two hours ; though it may only be about 

 half an hour, or be extended, without injury to the calf, to one or two 

 days. With Cows at pasture or which do no work, it is sometimes only 

 fifteen minutes. With the sheep the period is also brief, being about 

 fifteen minutes. If there are several lambs, there is usually an interval 

 of fifteen minutes to two hours between them : the second and succeeding 

 births being always quicker than the first. 



With multiparous animals — Sow, Bitch, and Cat — there is ordinarily a 

 period of ten or fifteen minutes, half an hour, an hour, or even more 

 between each birth. Not unfrequently the Sow brings forth ten young 

 ones within the course of an hour. 



We have mentioned thsif with those animals which are delivered in a 

 standing position, the ummical cord is ruptured when the young creature 

 reaches the ground, and usually close to its abdomen. If the mother is 

 recumbent when the offspring is born, the cord is torn as she gets up, 

 which is usually immediately after parturition. The circulation in and 

 by the cord being incomplete shortly before and during labor, its texture 

 appears to undergo a kind of softening that favors rupture ; while owing 

 to the vessels being reduced in size, and the way in which their rupture 

 occurs, haemorrhage is trifling. Sometimes, however, the cord is suffi- 

 ciently strong and elastic to resist spontaneous rupture, and the young 

 creature is born with the membranes attached to it by means of this bond 

 of union. The mother then, by a remarkable instinct, in cleansing the 

 young creature with its tongue, gnaws through the cord and sets free its 

 progeny. The Mare and Cow have been known to do this at times ; 

 otherwise, it is usually done by the carnivora. 



Whether the cord be ruptured spontaneously or gnawn through by the 

 parent, there is nothing to be feared from haemorrhage from either the 

 foetal or placental end ; for, contrary to what is observed in the human 

 species, the blood has very little tendency to flow from the umbilical 

 vessels, and the laceration and cold soon check any slight escape. But it 

 may sometimes happen that it is necessary to divide the cord at a short 

 distance from the umbilicus, and this is usually effected either by scrap- 

 ing, torsion, or cutting directly through it by the bistoury or scissors. 

 Even here there is little to apprehend from bleeding. Rainard, in thirty 

 years' experience, and other authorities, have never observed any harm to 

 result ; and the cases in which there was danger are certainly very few. 

 Rainard quotes-from Brugnone, that Be'ranger of Carpi has seen Horse 

 and Ass foals perish from haemorrhage through the cord having been cut 

 and no ligature applied ; and Peuch has witnessed a case of umbilical 

 haemorrhage in a new-born calf from which, notwithstanding a thread tied 

 round the cord, the blood escaped in drops ; another ligature placed 



