THE URINARY SYSTEM 437 



in the course of from two to four years the complaint dies out. The 

 latter is a much better plan than fattening off and replacing with 

 stock from an unknown and perhaps worse affected place. 



765. Prevention. — Various measures for prevention have from 

 time to time been tried, and nearly every district had some peculiar 

 old-fashioned fad of its own, such as burying the aborted calf under the 

 door-step of the byre, or keeping a male goat amongst the stock, etc. 

 Immediately a cow shows signs of parting with its calf it should be 

 put into a box, and left there to calve by itself ; in fact, no cow should 

 be allowed, under any circumstances, to calve amongst other pregnant animals, 

 and for this reason every stock-breeder should have at his disposal 

 one or more nursery boxes for this purpose. When an animal casts 

 its calf, the utmost care should be taken to keep it from contact with 

 any others that are pregnant, whilst the byres should be cleansed down 

 and washed with lime-wash and carbolic acid once every two months. 

 Little's phenyle or Jeyes' fluid, in the proportion of 1 to 80 of water, 

 should be sprinkled over the tail and hind-quarters of the other 

 animals with a watering-can night and morning ; chlorate of potash, 

 or pure carbolic acid, in doses of from 2 to 4 drachms, should be 

 given them every other day every alternate fortnight — from the third 

 month after service to the seventh — in a mash of bran. Caution. — 

 Irritating germicidal mixtures should, however, not be injected into 

 the vagina of a pregnant animal — though they are often recommended 

 — as they cause great pain and straining, and are more likely to bring 

 about abortion than to prevent it. 



766. Imperforate Hymen, known as Impervious Os Uteri. — 



In the virgin heifer, in perfect health, the vagina is very much 

 corrugated and constricted immediately in front of the neck of the 

 bladder, but beyond its external opening. In this complaint the 

 vaginal passage is entirely obliterated by these corrugations. Strange 

 to say, this lesion is mostly seen in white heifers ; I have operated on a 

 large number, but have only met with it in one coloured animal — 

 a light roan heifer. The animal rarely shows any indications of the 

 complaint until it has been served ; then the symptoms are developed 

 in a period varying from twelve hours to six weeks, the principal 

 portion of the cases occurring in from twelve to twenty days, when 



