352 



MATERNAL DYSTOKIA. 



results. This Saint-Cyr has proved to be the case in nineteen recorded 

 observations. Of these, seven were more or less unfortunate in their re- 

 sults ; in three instances, the mother and foetus succumbed ; in other 

 three, the mother died, but the progeny was saved ; and in the seventh, 

 the calf died but the Cow lived. This is a very high rate in mortality, 

 and yet Saint-Cyr is not quite certain that in these nineteen observations 

 there were not some which were rather cases of simple rigidity than indura- 

 tion of the cervix. For as Rainard remarks — and the remark would also 

 apply to the observations recorded in English veterinary literature — it is 

 not always easy, for lack of sufficient details, to discern clearly to which 

 category belongs such or such an observation given by writers under the 

 title of" indurated cervix," " scirrhous cervix," " stricture of the os uteri." 

 In arriving at a prognosis in a case of this description, the immediate 

 results are not alone to be taken into consideration ; as pregnancy and 

 the manipulatory operations necessary to effect delivery — which is always 

 tedious and difficult — give to morbid alterations of these parts — even when 

 quite benignant in their nature — an exceptional gravity ; so that many 

 animals, even after a comparatively easy delivery, succumb soon after- 

 wards to the diseased condition. The uterus may be ruptured through 

 the efforts at delivery. 



Pathological Anatomy. 



The lesions found after death are generally alluded to as "fibrous de- 

 generation," " scirrhus," or " cancer " of the cervix ; and it is usually 

 mentioned that this part was " hard and like cartilage," " creaking under 

 the knife like cutting an unripe apple or a turnip ; " or that there was 

 "scirrhus " or " cancer," " nodular and hard like cartilage." 



Macgillivray states that when the contraction of the os uteri is the re- 

 sult of prior disease, it will generally be found of a hard fibroid nature ; 

 while, on the other hand, where the contracted parts are soft and very 

 much thickened, acute disease will commonly be found accompanying the 

 stricture. " In hard stricture, the transverse rugae or folds appear gener- 

 ally to be transformed into a compact, unyielding fibro-cartilaginous ma- 

 terial ; in one very serious case I found six of these hardened unyielding 

 transverse rugae or folds between the os tmcce and os mternum. In soft 

 stricture, without any actual disease being present, the contraction is 

 generally confined to the os and the vaginal portion of the cervix uteri. 

 In cases of complicated stricture, or, in other words, stricture accompanied 

 by some active disease, it will often be found that the stricture is merely 

 the concomitant effect of the disease, and such causative disease will al- 

 most invariably prove to be either ulcerative, scirrhous, really cancerous, 

 or fungous in its nature. . . . Deposits of a fibrinous nature are only too 

 common in patients of rheumatic constitution." 



Lecoq, GelM, Horsburgh, Berger, Bruckmiiller and Macgillivray have 

 each recorded autopsies of animals which died from, or were killed be- 

 cause of, this condition. These are all the writers, to my knowledge, 

 who have done so. 



I. Called upon to assist a Cow which could not calve, Lecoq [Journal Pratique de 

 Med. Veterinaire, 1828, p. 88), on inti'oducing his hand into the vagina, found that the 

 neck of the uterus was thickened and hard, and the os quite closed; that a round body 

 of the same density was present at the upper part of the vagina, and was prolonged to- 

 wards the anus. When he withdrew his hand it was stained with blood. 



