ACCIDEXTS OF PREGXAXCV. 205 



are sporadic or accidental abortions ; and tliougli they must bo reckoned 

 as losses, yet they rarely attract much attention from the damage they 

 intlict, because of their isolated, and by no means unusual, occur- 

 rence. But when, on the contrary, the pregnant animals — say Cows, 

 Ewes, or Mares — on a farm, in a village, or over a large district or 

 country, abort in large numbers, and the mishap is evidently due to the 

 same cause or causes, then it is indeed a grave misfortune, as it entails 

 serious damage — present and prospective — to the interests of agricul- 

 ture and live stock. This is enzootic or epizootic abortion — -an occurrence, 

 unfortunately, far from uncommon, and the etiology of which has 

 Utracted the attention of the most distinguished European veterinarians 

 ior many years. 



Sporadic Abortion. 



Causes. — The assignable causes of sporadic abortion are very 

 numerous, but the way in which many of them operate in causing 

 separation' of the foetus from the mother is either unknown or little 

 understood. However, it is considered or presumed that they may act 

 either directly or indirectly, and produce their effects in an evident or 

 an obscure manner. They may be ranged as external or internal. 



1. External Causes. — Atmospherical influences, bad weather, or 

 irregular seasons, have been cited as predisposing to or causing abor- 

 tion. There can be no doubt whatever that cold, and especially when 

 suddenly applied to the skin, may produce this result; and hence it is that 

 the abrupt setting in of cold weather is often marked by miscarriages 

 among animals exposed to it. Many observers have noted that the 

 continued and severe cold of winter is far less frequently productive of 

 abortions than when cold, wet, or frosty nights in autumn succeed line 

 warm days. Cold rain is sometimes very damaging in this respect. 



With regard to food and ingesta in general, there can be no doubt 

 that here we often have an undoubted cause. Food of bad quality, 

 indigestible, or containing injurious ingredients, is well known to bo 

 dangerous. After unfavourable seasons, when forage has not been well 

 dried and made, abortions are far from uncommon. Indigestible food, 

 or that which has a tendency to collect or ferment in the stomach, may, 

 by exerting pressure on the uterus, produce this accident.' On the 

 other hand, too great an abundance of easily-digested and stimulating 

 food, by inducing plethora, and consequent congestion of the uterus 

 and loosening of the placentas, has been set down as another cause. 

 Frozen food or water, when taken in immoderate quantity, and espe- 

 cially if the digestive organs are nearly empty, as well as forage or 

 herbage covered with snow or fi-ost, are also injurious in this i-espect 

 to all the larger animals when pregnant, and abortion often follows 



' Delwart has given a good illustration of this. " For twenty years all the Cowa in a 

 herd of thirty aborted each year, and if by chance one Calf nached it.s term, it was so 

 puny and deformed that it died in a few days after birth. The cauHe of these alxirtions 

 appeared to me to lie in the too lirge >|uantity of ^jrains and balU of cereals with which 

 the animals were fed ; the nimen and Hecond compartment of the Htomacli formed a 

 compact mass which weighed on the fa>tus, prevented its development, ami ended by 

 killing it. These Cows were put under our care, and submitted to a different kind of 

 alimentation ; roots replaced the innutritions fixxl previously given, and which gave rise 

 to permanent indigestion. This regime was seconded by the administration of a decocti< n 

 '•f linseed, five or !«i.\ bucketfuls in the day, and a draught of a pound of sodium sulphate 

 to each Cow. . . . Success was complete ; the desttuctive scourge entirely disappeared, 

 and twenty- eight healthy Calves were born at the proper time." 



