DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS. 163 



the danger of putrid poisoning may be obviated by injecting the 

 antiseptic solution advised in the paragraph above. 



ABORTION (SLINKING THE CALF). 



Technically, abortion is the term used for the expulsion of the off- 

 spring before it can live out of the womb. Its expulsion before the 

 normal time, but after it is capable of an independent existence, is 

 premature parturition. In the cow this may be after seven and one- 

 half months of pregnancy. Earl Spencer failed to raise any calf born 

 before the two hundred and forty-second day. Dairymen use the 

 term abortion for the expulsion of the product of conception at any 

 time before the completion of the full period of a normal pregnancy, 

 and in this sense it will be used in this article. 



Abortion in cows is either contagious or noncontagious. It does 

 not follow that the contagium is the sole cause in every case in which 

 it is present. We know that the organized germs (microbes) of 

 contagion vary much in potency at different times, and that the ani- 

 mal system also varies in susceptibility to their attack. The germ 

 may therefore be present in a herd without any manifest injury, its 

 disease-producing power having for the time abated considerably, 

 or the whole herd being in a condition of comparative insuscepti- 

 bility. At other times the same germ may have become so virulent 

 that almost all pregnant cows succumb to its force, or the herd may 

 have been subjected to other causes of abortion which, though of 

 themselves powerless to actually cause abortion, may yet so predis- 

 pose the animals that even the weaker germ will operate with de- 

 structive effect. In dealing with this disease, therefore, it is the part 

 of wisdom not to rest satisfied with the discovery and removal of 

 one specific cause, but rather to try to find every existent cause and 

 to obtain a remedy by correcting all the harmful conditions. 



NONCONTAGIOUS ABORTION. 



As abortion most frequently occurs at those three-week intervals 

 at which the cow would have been in heat if nonpregnant, we may 

 assume a predisposition at such times owing to a periodicity in the 

 nervous system and functions. Poor condition, weakness, and a too 

 watery state of the blood is often a predisposing cause. This in its 

 turn may result from poor or insufficient feed, from the excessive 

 drain upon the udder while bearing the calf, from the use of feed 

 deficient in certain essential elements, like the nitrogenous constitu- 

 ents or albuminoids, from chronic, wasting diseases, from round- 

 worms or tapeworms in the bowels, from flatworms (flukes, trema- 

 todes) in the liver, from worms in the lungs, from dark, damp, un- 

 healthful buildings, etc. In some such cases the nourishment is so 



