476 Veteri7iary Obstetrics 



ually pregnant cows in the same enclosures, we never observed 

 abortion in these. In fact, during a period of 12 years in private 

 practice, in a region devoted almost equally to the rearing of 

 draft horses and beef cattle, we did not observe a single outbreak 

 of infectious abortion in cows. On the other hand, numerous 

 outbreaks of infectious abortion of mares occurred, which were 

 widespread and caused an almost total loss of the foal crop. 

 During the.se outbreaks of contagious abortion in mares, it also 

 occurred very naturally that the aborted fetuses and afterbirths 

 were very frequently eaten by pregnant .sows. Yet, we did not 

 observe that any of them ever aborted from this cause. Nor 

 have we ever seen infectious abortion in the sow, although in 

 the region of our practice swine breeding was one of the leading 

 industries and many farmers habitually bred from jo to 20 or 

 more sows each year. From a clinical standpoint, it seems very 

 certain that each of our herbivorous domestic animals has a form 

 of infectious abortion peculiar to itself and not transmissible in a 

 natural way to other .species. 



Bang (Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics, 

 Vol. 19, page 191) holds that abortion among mares may be due 

 to the same bacillus or micro-organism as that which causes the 

 disease in cows and concludes that it " reminds us not to neglect 

 precautions in order to protect mares against infection from 

 aborting cows." Bang has by no means proven his suspicion, 

 as he failed in his one recorded experiment with a mare to pro- 

 duce abortion, and the animal gave birth to a small living foal 

 which continued to live for two days. He asserts, however, 

 that he has produced abortion by the injection of his abortion 

 bacillus into the veins of sheep, goats and rabbits, in addition to 

 the cow. He has not shown, however, that any of these ever 

 contracted the di.sea.se, in a natural way, from another species of 

 animal. 



Ostertag (Monatshefte fur Praktische Tierheilkunde, Vol. 12, 

 page 385) records a careful study of infectious abortion in the 

 mare, in which he concludes that the cause of the disease in this 

 animal is different from that in the cow. He finds that the 

 micro-organism of infectious abortion of the mare is a short 

 streptococcus, instead of a bacillus, as described by Bang and 

 others as the cause of abortion in cows. 



