iU 



dications of being diseased at the points of adherence 

 to the walls of the uterus, commonly known as the 

 cotyledons. 



10. A cow which has once lost her calf will usually 

 fail to breed, but become a '* buller," and be very 

 troublesome or useless, and if she be bred successfully 

 the calf will almost invariably be lost as the previous one 

 was. 



11. When a cow which has lost her calf is kept from 

 breeding for a considerable time there is a fair chance 

 that she may be bred successfully; several months, or a 

 whole year, should elapse. 



12. When the calf survives a premature birth it is in- 

 variably weak and unthrifty; usually it dies after a few 

 hours or days, bellowing incessantly, as if in suffering, 

 and if it should survive it will never be j^rofitable to its 

 owner. 



These circumstances all tend to show that the disease 

 is contagious and affects only one organ — viz., the uterus — 

 of the cow; the animal otherwise appearing in usual health, 

 unless through the persistent retention of the foetal en- 

 velopes, which by their decomposition and 'absorption 

 may produce blood poisoning, the animal succumbs to 

 the ultimate and secondary results of the disease. Re- 

 cent careful investigations undertaken by the French 

 Minister of Agriculture, through Prof. E. Nocard of the 

 Alfort Veterinary College, have confirmed the belief in 

 the contagiousness of the disease and its communication 

 by a special germ which exists in diseased organs, and 

 whose presence in hitherto healthy animals invariably 

 produces all the results which happen through infection. 



Prof. Nocard, as the results of his investigation, con- 

 cludes as follows : 



1. In cows that have aborted, even in those that were 

 pregnant for the first time, there exists in the interior of 

 the uterus, between the mucous lining and the mem- 



