184 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



to both mother and offspring. On the other hand, I have known 

 extreme cases come to the natural term without help, and produce a 

 living calf, after which the dam did well. The natural resort is to draw 

 off a portion of the fluid through a hollow needle passed through the 

 neck of the womb or through its tense wall adjacent. This may be 

 repeated several times, as demanded to relieve the cow from the injuri- 

 ous distension. 



PARALYSIS OF THE HIND PARTS. 



In ill-fed, weak, unthrifty cows palsy of the hind limbs and tail may 

 appear in the last weeks of pregnancy. The anus and rectum may 

 participate in the palsy so far as to prevent defecation, and the rectum 

 is more or less completely impacted. Exposure to wet and cold are 

 often accessory causes, though the low condition, general weakness, 

 and the pressure on the nerves going to the hind limbs are not to be 

 forgotten. Something may be done for these cases by a warm dry bed, 

 an abundant diet fed warm, frictions with straw wisps or with a liniment 

 of equal parts of oil of turpentine and sweet oil on the loins, croup, and 

 limbs, by the daily use of ginger and gentian, by the cautious adminis- 

 tration of strychnia (2 grains twice daily), and by sending a current of 

 electricity daily from the loins through the various groups of muscles 

 in the hind limbs. The case becomes increasingly hopeful after calving, 

 though some days may still elapse before the animal can support herself 

 upon her limbs. 



EXTRA-UTERINE GESTATION FETUS DEVELOPING OUTSIDE THE 



WOMB. 



These curious cases are rare and are usually divided into three types : 

 (1) That in which the fetus is formed in or on the ovary (ovarian gesta- 

 tion); (2) that in which it is lodged in the fallopian tube or canal 

 between the ovary and womb (tubaLgestation); and (3) that in which 

 it is lodged in the abdominal cavity and attached to one or more of its 

 contents from which it draws its nourishment (abdominal gestation). 

 Undoubted cases of the first and last varieties are recorded as occurring 

 in the cow. The explanation of such cases is to be found in the fact 

 that the actively moving sperm cells (spermatozoa) thrown into the 

 womb have made their way through the fallopian tubes to the ovary. 

 If they met and impregnated an ovum in the tube, and if the conse- 

 quent growth of that ovum prevented its descent and caused its impris- 

 onment within the tube, it developed there, getting attached to and 

 drawing nourishment from the mucous walls. Such product has its 

 development arrested by compression by the undilatable tube, or burst- 

 ing through the walls of the tube it escapes into the abdomen and 

 perishes. If, on the contrary, the spermatozoa only meet and impregnate 

 the ovum on or in the ovary, the development may take place in the 

 substance of the ovary from which the fetus draws its nourishment, 



