EVERSION OF THE UTERUS 109 



extraction. In these cases eversion had already start- 

 ed ; removal of the after-birth with proper flushing and 

 swabbing immediately put an end to the trouble. 



The mortality in eversion of the uterus is governed 

 by two chief causes. One is shock ; the other infection. 

 But here again no fixed rule can be considered. Those 

 of us who have seen many of these cases can recall 

 deaths with the best of care and recoveries with the 

 most outrageous handling. I recall one instance which 

 was somewhat of a knocker to me when I first began 

 practice. A farmer had a case of eversion of the 

 uterus in a cow shortly before I located for practice. 

 He ''merely put it back in," hair, chaff, manure and 

 everything else with it. The cow recovered without 

 missing a feed. Some time after I located in his vicin^ 

 ity he had another similar case and, like a good fellow, 

 called me. I spent ten or fifteen minutes cleaning up 

 the mass with every antiseptic precaution and delicacy 

 before replacing it and gave the cow every care. She 

 died in two or three days. I remember a number of 

 similar incidents. 



However, this is no reason why we should allow^ our- 

 selves to ignore scrupulous cleanliness in treating 

 these cases. I merely mention it to show that recovery 

 or death is not controlled by set rules. All w^e can 

 reasonably say is that undoubtedly death was due to 

 shock if the death occurred a relatively short time 

 after the eversion took place, say, not more than ten 

 or twelve hours. If the death occurred after a num- 

 ber of days the cows no doubt succumbed to infection. 

 To attempt to prognosticate this cause of probable 

 death is evidence of a lack of experience with these 

 cases. 



The treatment or handling of a case of this kind in 

 a tactful, and at the same time, successful manner, re- 



