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PATHOLOGY OF PREGNANCY. 



SECTION III.— SPURIOUS OR PSEUDO-PREGNANCY. 



Spurious pregnancy is a designation applied by veterinary obstetrists 

 to certain accidents, characterised by the development of special patho- 

 logical productions, which may probably be due to a previous conception, 

 and which more or less simulate normal pregnancy. Such cases are 

 far from common, and the principal of them are described as moles, 

 uterine cysts, and hydrometra or hydrops uteri.^ These we will allude 

 to. 



Moles. 



Moles, or more correctly speaking perhaps, anidian monsters, are more 

 or less voluminous fleshy masses constituted by a blighted embryo, the 



membranes of which have continued to perform their function, and to 

 nourish the abnormal growth. They are, as a rule, met with only in 

 Euminants, and especially the Bovine species, though Eoell mentions 

 their occurrence in the Mare ; and in nearly every case they appear to 

 be one of twins, the development of which has been arrested at a certain 

 period. 



The mole {viola cruenta) is more particularly characterised by the 

 persistence of an umbilical cord which, though degenerated, yet seems 

 in the majority of cases to maintain relations between the tumour and 



1 I am not aware that the curious and obscure form of pseudo-pregnancy occurring in 

 woman, and designated pseudo-cyesi^ by the late Dr. Simpson, has ever been observed in. 

 animals. 



