DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS. 189 



precise methods ftnds it difficult to come to a just conclusion. The 

 emanations from a cow in heat, however, will instantly draw the bull 

 from a long distance. Carrion in the pasture fields or about slaughter- 

 houses near by, the emanations from shallow graves, dead rats. or 

 chickens about the barns, and dead calves, the product of prior abor- 

 tions, are often chargeable with the maintenance of abortions. Abort- 

 ing cows often fail to expel the afterbirth, and if this remains hanging 

 in a putrid condition it is most injurious to pregnant cows in the near 

 vicinity. So with retained afterbirth in other cows after calving. 

 That some cows kept in filthy stables or near by slaughterhouses may 

 become inured to the odors and escape the evil results is no disproof of 

 the injurious effects so often seen in such cases. 



The excitement, jarring, and jolting of a railroad journey will often 

 cause abortion , especially as the cow nears the period of calving, and 

 the terror or injury of railway or other accidents prove incomparably 

 worse. 



All irritant poisons cause abortions by the disorder and inflammation 

 of the digestive organs, and if such agents act also on the kidneys or 

 womb the effect is materially enhanced. Powerful purgatives or diu- 

 retics should never be administered to the pregnant cow. 



During pregnancy the contact of the expanding womb with the 

 paunch, just beneath it, and its further intimate connection through 

 nervous sympathy with the whole digestive system, leads to various 

 functional disorders and especially to a morbid craving for unnatural 

 objects of food. In the cow this is shown in the chewing of bones, 

 pieces of wood, iron bolts, articles of clothing, lumps of hardened paint, 

 etc. An unsatisfied craving of this kind, producing constant excite- 

 ment of the nervous system, will strongly conduce to abortion. How 

 much more so if the food is lacking in the mineral matter and especially 

 the phosphates necessary for the building up of the body of both dam 

 and offspring, to say nothing of that drained off in every milking. 

 This state of things is present in many old dairy farms, from which the 

 mineral matters of the surface soil have been sold off in the milk or 

 cheese for generations and no return has been made in food or manure 

 purchased. Here is the craving of an imperative need, and if it is not 

 supplied the health of the cow suffers and the life of the fetus may be 

 sacrificed. 



Among other causes of abortion must be named the death or the 

 various illnesses of the fetus, which are about as numerous as those of 

 the adult; the slipping of a young fetus through a loop in the navel 

 string so as to tie a knot which will tighten later and interrupt the 

 flow of blood with fatal effect; and the twisting of the navel string by 

 the turning of the fetus until little or no blood can flow through the 

 contorted cord. There is in addition a series of diseases of the mucous 

 membrane of the womb, and of the fetal membranes (inflammation, 

 effusion of blood, detachment of the membranes from the womb, fatty 



