INVERSION OF THE UTERUS. 581 



It was an urgent case. I soaked four or five double towels and a sheet in cold water, 

 and passed them through the vagina into the uterus, and then blocked that passage up in a 

 similar manner. From fifty to sixty cans of cold water were thrown on her, and a double 

 cloth over her loins was kept constantly wet. Acetate of lead and opium were admin- 

 istered internally, with alternate doses of laxative medicine. On the third day the 

 cloths were eased by twisting them, and on the fourth day they were expelled. The ani- 

 mal recovered, and was in usual milk in ten or twelve days." 



16. The same veterinary surgeon {Ibid.) was sent for in great haste to see a Mare 

 which had foaled, and was reported to be losing great quantities of blood. When he 

 arrived, he found the animal so exhausted that it was staggering about. "In several 

 places where she had stood for a short time^ were clots of blood the size of a man's 

 head, besides much fluid blood that had been evacuated, and had sunk into the ground. 

 I douched her with a great volume of cold water, and adopted the treatment before men- 

 tioned. I did not introduce cloths into the vagina. The Mare recovered." 



CHAPTER III. 



Inversion of the Uterus. 



Inversion, procidence, prolapse of the uterus, or vagino-uteral inversion, sig- 

 nifies a kind of hernia of the organ, consisting in its partial or complete 

 turning inside out: the inverted fundus escaping through the os uteri 

 {partial i?iversion), vagina, and vulva, and perhaps descending as low as 

 the hocks {comptete inversion), where it forms a more or less voluminous 

 tumor. 



When the inversion is very partial, nothing whatever is seen externally, 

 and an exploration alone reveals the existence of the accident ; if more 

 developed, the uterus appears as a round tumor between the labia of the 

 vulva when the animal is lying, and especially if the floor is sloping back- 

 wards, which causes the gastro-intestinal mass to press upon the organ. 

 Sometimes the procidence is so very slight that there is merely a bulging 

 inwards at the fundus of the uterus, or in one of the cornua. 



In complete inversion, we not unfrequently have prolapsus of a portion 

 of the vagina ; and it is recognized as appearing in two forms or degrees, 

 according as there is inversion of the body of the uterus, or inversion of 

 the cornua as well ; sometimes it is only one cornu, which is then de- 

 viated to the right or left of the vertical direction of the body of the organ, 

 according as it is one or other of these parts. If both cornua are com- 

 pletely inverted, they terminate inferiorly in the form of a cone ; but if 

 they are only incompletely so, then they remain cylindrical at their lower 

 end, and at the centre of the cylinder is a depression or caecal cavity. 



Inversion of the uterus is, of course, only possible when the os uteri is 

 dilated ; consequently, it occurs either immediately before or after birth. 



Again, inversion is simple or complicated. It is simple when the viscus 

 is intact, uninjured, and not accompanied by the extrusion or displace- 

 ment of any other organ. When it is wounded or torn, or when there is 

 accompanying hernia or protrusion of other viscera, then it is complicated. 



As we have said, ruminants are most liable to this accident : the Cow 

 coming first, then the Sheep and Goat ; the Mare is less frequently 

 affected, and the Sow and Bitch perhaps not so often as the Mare. In- 

 version of the uterus has been observed in the Cat and Rabbit. 



With the Bitch and Sow, incomplete inversion of the uterus is far from 

 uncommon, as is also simple inversion of the vagina, for which it might 

 be mistaken. In uniparous animals, the whole of the organ is usually in- 



