4o8 Veten'fiary Obstetrics 



If contagious abortion breaks out in a harem of mares which 

 are running upon corn stalks during the autumn or earl}- winter, 

 after the corn has been gathered, it is not difficult for the owner 

 or veterinarian to find stalks of corn affected by smut and, 

 believing that this causes abortion, to make it serve as a scape- 

 goat for the infectious disease which is destroying the foal crop. 

 At another season of the year, if the mares are grazing upon blue^ 

 grass and abortion breaks out, the searcher after ergot may find 

 a few traces upon the grass and thereby explain the presence of 

 the contagious disease. If the mares are grazing upon red 

 clover, which admittedly has a tendency to induce tympany and 

 other serious diseases in case of overfeeding, the character of the 

 food is again drawn upon to explain the presence of the disease. 



In general it should then be stated that the food should be of 

 a good quality, just as it should be for a non-pregnant animal, 

 and that in amount it should correspond very closely with the 

 volume allowed to ordinary animals. 



In reference to water for pregnant females, there is again no 

 essential danger which does not equally apply to the non-preg- 

 nant animal. Fleming holds that pregnant animals should not 

 be allowed to drink very cold water, which is not clinically true. 

 We have habitually observed animals drinking cold water at will 

 and have never observed any ill effects from it. Throughout the 

 western parts of the United States, and even in the Mississippi 

 Valley, pregnant animals habitually have cold water during the 

 winter season. Upon the Great Plains of the United States, 

 pregnant animals very largely use snow instead of water and it 

 does them no harm ; when they do drink water from a stream it 

 is generally barely above the freezing point. Throughout the 

 Mississippi Valley it is not at all rare in the winter season to be 

 obliged dail}^ to break or cut the ice which covers the water 

 which pregnant animals are to drink. 



Nevertheless, there is some force to the remark in reference to 

 the allowance of very cold water ; if an animal is allowed to be- 

 come extremely thirsty and has been made very warm by fatigu- 

 ing labor and is then allowed to drink an inordinate amount of 

 ice-cold water, it may have a very deleterious influence upon the 

 fetus, since, when the water reaches the stomach or rumen, it 

 comes in close contact with the young animal and causes a very 

 severe shock. But even this injudicious allowance of water- 



