176 PATHOlJinY OF PRE'iXAXrV. 



Symptoms, Course, and Terminations. 



The symptoms are generally those of conception and gestation. The 

 ovum grafts itself on some part with which it chances to be in contact ; 

 an embryo results, the placenta being attached to the neighbouring tex- 

 tures and developing with the increase of the young creature ; these 

 changes being accompanied by the ordinary external signs of uterine 

 pregnancy. In the majority of cases, when parturition should occur in 

 the usual course, the premonitory indications of that phenomenon are 

 very slight or altogether absent ; though the animal may now and then 

 make expulsive efforts, which continue perhaps for a few days, and 

 then subside gradually, or recur at intervals. In the most favourable 

 cases, when the foetus perishes, it becomes encysted and mummified ; 

 the fluids and soft parts are absorbed, and the remaining portions 

 become dry and parchment-like ; or the creature may undergo a process 

 of calcification by the deposition of carbonate and phosphate of lime in 

 its tissues, which preserve its shape, and convert it into a " lithopaedion " 

 or " osteopaedion." In this condition the foetus may remain for an 

 indefinite period in the abdomen of the mother, without causing much, 

 if any, inconvenience ; indeed, a most perfect state of health may exist, 

 and the animal may become remarkably fat, or it may again conceive 

 and bring forth as favourably as if nothing abnormal existed ; the 

 indications of anomalous gestation being only discovered by chance 

 when the animal dies from some disease which has no relation to this 

 accident, or is killed for food. 



Such a happy result of the accident is, however, very far from being 

 the rule, and the chances are many that a fatal termination will be the 

 consequence of extra-uterine gestation. Expulsive efforts or other 

 causes, may lead to rupture of the cyst in which the foetus is contained; 

 and this, with the fluids and debris of membranes, falling into the 

 abdominal cavity, may give rise to such a severe form of peritonitis that 

 death will ensue in one or two days. In other instances the kyst 

 inflames, and suppuration is established, with putrefaction and partial 

 solution of the foetus ; and if the mother does not at once succumb to 

 pyaemia or septik£emia, adhesions and communications are formed 

 between the kyst and neighbouring organs, and the remains of the 

 young animal, chiefly the bones, are expelled either directly, as by 

 ulceration of the abdominal walls after the development of an abscess, 

 or indirectly, as through the intestine, etc. After the foreign matters 

 have been completely, or even only partially, eliminated in this way, 

 the fistulous openings by which they escaped cicatrise after a variable 

 period of suppuration, and the female recovers — as has been observed 

 in Sheep and Goats. 



More frequently, however, it loses condition, becomes emaciated and 

 feeble, and perishes in a state of marasmus ; or it succumbs to hectic 

 fever, septikaemia, or one of the many accidents which the presence of 

 such a body may produce. The course of external ovarian gestation, 

 which has been stated by Gurlt to occur in the domesticated animals, 

 appears to be as follows : the envelopes of the ovary rupture towards 

 the second or third month of the embryo's development, w^hen the latter 

 falls into the abdominal cavity, w^here it constitutes what we have 

 termed "abdominal" gestation, leaving only a cicatrix on the ovary. 

 With regard to internal ovarian pregnancy, the ordinary termination is 

 rupture of the organ, and fatal htemorrhage. 



