288 MATERNAL DYSTOKIA. 



the hernia ; most frequently, however, it gives way, the uterus passes 

 through it, and then there is no hernial sac. 



In a recent hernia, the connective tissue surrounding it is greatly ecchy- 

 mosed and infiltrated, and the muscular fibres broken-up and separated ; 

 the tendinous fibres are also separated and torn, and numerous red and 

 partly discolorized blood-clots lie among their interstices. At a later 

 period no extravasated blood is found between the skin and the uterus, 

 but the parts are uniformly red ; and, later still, attempts at repair are evi- 

 denced by cicatrization of the borders of the rupture, which have then a 

 rounded, thickened, and fibro-tendinous aspect, and are dense and resist- 

 ing. The connective tissue beneath the skin is condensed into a kind of 

 smooth membrane, continuous with the margin of the rent, and forms a 

 second tunic to the hernia. 



Before parturition the hernia is occupied exclusively, or nearly so, by 

 the gravid uterus, which is wholly or in part lodged in this accidental di- 

 verticulum. After delivery, however, the uterus often, though not always, 

 ascends into the abdominal cavity ; but whether it does so or not, other 

 viscera — such as the rumen with the Cow, and the colon and small intes- 

 tine with the Mare — find their way into the pouch ; Rodet has even found 

 the uterus and the entire intestinal mass included in it. 



Deviation of the Uterus. 



By the term deviation^ when applied to the uterus, is meant a change in 

 the direction of the organ, by which the cervix and os no longer corre- 

 spond to the axis of the vagina. This change of direction in the vaginal 

 opening of the uterus may be productive of more or less difficulty in 

 parturition. 



Changes in the position of the uterus are somewhat common in woman, 

 whose vertical uterus may easily deviate in any direction, producing those 

 flexions and versions which not unfrequently offer serious obstacles to de- 

 livery. With quadrupeds, however, in which the uterus is horizontal, the 

 veterinary obstetrist has but to deal with one kind of deviation of the 

 uterus, the only one possible — that of inferior obliquity^ which appears to 

 be extremely rare, and corresponds to the anteversion of the human fe- 

 male. 



According to Schaack and Garreau, who have more particularly studied 

 it, this change of position may, in certain circumstances, become a very 

 serious cause of dystokia. 



The accident has, up to the present time, only been observed in the 

 Cow \ and this circumstance is believed to be explained by an interest- 

 ing feature in the anatomy of this animal, which has been recently brought 

 under notice by Professor Goubaux, of the Alfort Veterinary School. 



It would appear that, in bovines, the abdominal muscles are not at- 

 tached to the anterior border of the pubis as in solipeds, but are inserted 

 into a thick ligament found at the external and inferior part of the pubic 

 bones, and which strengthens the symphysis pubis. It consequently hap- 

 pens that, at this border of these bones, the floor of the abdomen is on a 

 lower plane than that of the pelvic cavity ; so that there is a kind of step 

 between the two cavities, the height of which varies in different animals, 

 but has been found to be as much as three, four, and even five inches. 

 Dissection has demonstrated that the peritoneum lining the lower sur- 

 face of the abdominal cavity, on arriving at the pubis ascends this step, 



