450 



FCETAL DYSTOKIA. 



In other cases the fore-hmbs can be felt, but cannot be sufficiently 

 seized to manipulate them. The fore-arm should be corded, and traction 

 employed, while retropulsion is resorted to by the crutch, and also by the 

 hand applied to the shoulder-joint. When the knee is brought up to the 

 inlet, the other part of the operation can be easily executed in the manner 

 already indicated. 



One limb being secured in the os, if the second is retained it must be 

 brought into this canal in the same way. 



It sometimes happens, however, and especially with the Mare, and with 

 Heifers which have been rudely manipulated before the arrival of the 

 veterinary surgeon, that the foetus is so engaged in the genital canal, that 

 retropulsion is impossible. In such circumstances some authorities have 

 recommended forced extraction, traction being exerted on the head of 

 the foetus either by assistants or mechanical means ; others have ad- 

 vised decapitation — skinning the head and removing it at the first or 

 second vertebra, taking care that the ends of the bones are covered by 

 the skin of the skull, to prevent laceration ; then retropulsion is possible, 

 and extraction may be effected. 



With regard to forced extraction, there can be no doubt that if both 

 fore-limbs are retained, it endangers the life of the foetus, if it is still alive, 

 and also that of the mother ; though it may be successfully practised with 

 the Sheep, Goat, and other small animals. When only one limb is re- 

 tained in the Mare or Cow, forced extraction may, nevertheless, succeed ; 

 and Rueff, Harms, Darreau, and other practitioners have proved that it 

 is possible, traction being employed on the head and normally-presented 

 leg. Amputation of the head will not always prove advantageous in re- 

 tropulsion ; indeed, it will often be found that it is a disadvantage. 



The most rational and hopeful operation, is detaching the shoulder 

 from the trunk ; or the biceps brachialis muscle may be cut through by the 

 curved finger-knife (to be hereafter described) in its thickest part at the 

 shoulder-joint, or above the elbow-joint. Then extraction may be again 

 attempted. If the foetus does not come away, then eventration of the 

 chest and abdomen may be practised. Should delivery be still impossi- 

 ble (which is unlikely), the limb should be detached at the shoulder, and 

 the trunk withdrawn from the uterus, the leg being extracted afterwards. 



When one limb protrudes with the head, this may be removed sub- 

 cutaneously at the shoulder, as it is easier accomplished than amputation 

 of the retained limb. 



SECTION II. — DYSTOKIA DUE TO THE HEAD. 



Obstacles to parturition from a wrong direction of the head are quite 

 as frequent as, and more serious than, those due to misdirection of the 

 fore-limbs. It is stated that they occur oftener in the Mare than the 

 Cow, but this questionable ; though in the former animal they are more 

 embarrassing, as in consequence of the longer neck of the fcetus the head 

 can be carried back much farther — even as far as the flank — while with 

 the calf it seldom goes much beyond the shoulder.* The complication is 



* Since allusion was made to dystokia from excess in volume of the head of the foetus (p. 369), Coliin. cf 

 Wassy, has published an instructive paper on the subject (5^^/r«rt/ rtW jl/^<f. Veiermaire et de Zootechnie, 

 Nov., 1876, p. 529), which deserves notice here. Observing that in very bony Cows the size of the calf's 

 head is often an obstacle to parturition, especially in primipars and in the Jnrassique breed of cattle, while 

 it is rare in improved breeds, in which the head is small, he describes the nature of the obstacle, and 

 remarks that, if traction is ventured upon to extract the foetus, it must be very violent, and therefore likely 

 to produce serious, if not irreparable, injury. To avert this, he insists on putting Schaack's head-collar on 

 the fcetus, or a cord placed behind the ears, then each side looped round the lower jaw, to answer the same 



