ABORTION IN Cows. 105 



but instead of bleeding, which at times is a useless and injurious 

 practice, especially when done without proper knowledge, I give salts 

 and sulphur to cleanse and purify the blood. The proper quantity 

 for a full-grown animal should be one-half pound of salts and two 

 ounces of sulphur, which is made into three doses and a dose given 

 every two days. In connection with this matter of allowing cows to 

 run in the barn-yards, it is, in my opinion, one of the great causes of 



ABORTION IN CATTLE. 



I am constantly receiving letters inquiring as to the cause of this 

 disease (for it has unmistakably shown itself to be a disease under 

 certain conditions), and the permitting of cattle to run in the barn- 

 yards, where they have the chance to push, butt and abuse each 

 other, is, I am confident, in many cases, a frequent cause of the 

 trouble; and once this disease gets into the herd, it is almost impos- 

 sible to get rid of it until it has infected the entire stock. A farmer 

 known to me had some twenty abortions amongst his fine herd of 

 Jerseys this season, and only saved a few calves from cows that were 

 on a distant farm. He told me that he had written to nearly every 

 prominent breeder in the country to find out the cause, besides 

 stating his case in several of the agricultural journals, but without get- 

 ting any satisf actory reply. A letter received from him a few days ago 

 stated that he had found that it was a heifer that he had purchased in the 

 summer of 1882 that had brought this serious disease into his herd, entail- 

 ing a loss of thousands of dollars. In my opinion, the probable cause was 

 that the rest of his cows had set upon the stranger and gored her and 

 hurt her, and in tlu's manner caused her to abort. His yard, I think, 

 is not more than 100 feet square, in which he kept thirty head of 

 cattle. The yard was littered with salt or marsh hay, probably three 

 feet deep. On this the herdsman would scatter the corn stalks or 

 hay for the cattle, and the result was that the master cow would 

 attack the one nearest her, and so on until all were bruised less or 

 more. I believe this very improper manner of feeding has now been 

 changed, and the animals are kept in box stalls. 



Q. Abortion, I believe, Mr. Crozier, is generally supposed to be 

 first brought about by mechanical means. How do you account for 

 its being infectious ? 



A. It is probably caused by the taint or smell from the afterbirth, 

 which always follows an abortion. The best preventive from infection 

 from this odor is for the herdsman to promptly use his best judgment 

 in relieving the cow from the placenta, being careful to bury all of it 



