110 The Practical Stud Groom. 



the stallion, whether placed in the vagina by the stallion 

 or into the womb by the inseminator. On the other hand, 

 the value of the inseminator is manifest when the os or neck 

 of the womb has, through injury at foaling time, become 

 scirrhous and incapable of dilating sufficiently to admit of 

 the passage of the " seed " of the stallion into the uterus or 

 womb. Here it may be noted that although the authorities 

 are not quite agreed on the question whether the spermatic 

 fluid of the horse can be discharged directly into the uterus 

 or womb by the stallion during coition, or is always 

 deposited on the floor of the vagina whence the spermatozoa 

 make their way to the uterus and fallopian tubes by their 

 own powers of locomotion, yet all are agreed that the 

 fertilized ovum will have little chance of further develop- 

 ment if the womb is not in a perfectly healthy condition. 



" Many mares fail to breed, not from any structural 

 defect of the reproductive organs, but from a functional 

 derangement of the mucous membrane of the uterus or 

 vagina, whose vitiated secretion imperils, if it does not 

 immediately destroy, the life of the spermatozoa, or, should 

 they escape and impregnation take place, the fertilized 

 ovum sooner or later succumbs to its unhealthy environ- 

 ment." (Professor Axe.) This quotation affords further 

 proof of the correctness of the author's contention that 

 " when a mare fails to get in foal, nine times out of ten the 

 blame must be laid on the mare and not on the stallion," 

 and that what in stud parlance is termed " turning " or 

 " breaking " to such and such a horse, would be more fairly 

 described as " aborting " to him. In practice it will 

 generally be found that once functional ailments of the 

 mare's generative organs have been treated and overcome, 

 the inseminator will be a superfluity; whereas in cases of 



