DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS. 151 



STERILITY FROM OTHER CAUSES. 



The questions as to whether a bull is a sure stock getter and whether 

 a cow is a breeder are so important that it would be wrong to pass 

 over other prominent causes of sterility. Breeding at too early an 

 age is a common source of increasing weakness of constitution which 

 has obtained in certain breeds. Jerseys have especially been made 

 the victims of this mistake, the object being to establish the highest 

 milking powers in the smallest obtainable body which will demand 

 the least material and outlay for its constant repair of waste. With 

 success in this line there has been the counterbalancing disadvantage 

 of impaired vigor, with too often lessened fertility as well as increased 

 predisposition to disease. When the heifers of the race have for 

 generation after generation been bred under a year old, the demand 

 for the nourishment of the fetus is too great a drain on the immature 

 animal, which accordingly remains small and stunted. As it fails to 

 develop in size, so every organ fails to be nourished to f)erfection. 

 Similarly with the immature bull put to too many cows ; he fails to 

 develop his full size, vigor, or stamina, and transfers his acquired 

 weakness to his progeny. An increasing number of barren females 

 and an increasing proclivity to abortions are the necessary results of 

 both courses. When this early breeding has occurred accidentally it 

 is well to dry up the dam just after calving, and to avoid having her 

 fcierved again until full grown. 



Some highly fed and plethoric females seem to escape conception 

 by the very intensity of the generative ardor. The fretjuent passage 

 of urine, accompanied by contractions of the womb and vagina and 

 a profuse secretion from their surfaces, leads to the expulsion of the 

 semen after it has been lodged in the genital passages. This may be 

 remedied somewhat by bleeding the cow shortly before putting to 

 the bull, so as to diminish the richness and stimulating quality of 

 the blood ; or better, by giving 1^ pounds of Epsom salt a day or two 

 before she comes in heat, and subjecting her at the same time to a 

 spare diet. Should the excessive ardor of the cow not be controllable 

 in this way, she may be shut up for a day or two, until the heat is 

 passing off, when under the lessened excitement the semen is more 

 likely to be retained. 



The various diseases of the ovaries, their tubes, the womb, the 

 testicles and their excretory ducts, as referred to under " Excess of 

 generative ardor," are causes of barrenness. In this connection it 

 may be named that the discharges consequent on calving are fatal to 

 the vitality of semen introduced before these have ceased to flow ; 

 hence service too soon after calving, or that of a cow which has 

 had the womb or genital passages injured so as to keep up a muco- 



