ALVIJJEiXTS OF PMEUXAXCY. 207 



Carrying a rider, in the case of the Marc, and especially if spurs are 

 used, is attended with much risk. 



Excitement, fear,^ sudden surprise, or anger, are also causes. Heavy 

 thunder has sometimes been serious in this way ; and the fear produced 

 hy Dogs leads sometimes to heavy losses among Sheep — foxhounds 

 running near or among pregnant Cattle or Sheep often cause consider- 

 able damage, especially among nervous animals. 



Certain odours are said to cause abortion. 



2. IntcrnalCauscs. — Badly-fed and neglected animals sometimes abort, 

 but not nearly so frequently, perhaps, as those in the opposite condition 

 and extremely fat. It is generally admitted that with some animals 

 there is a special predisposition to abort, and that a very trifling cause 

 — especially previous abortions — and sometimes no apprecial)le cause 

 at all, will induce this accident ; while other animals never lose their 

 fa?tus, though exposed to the influence of apparently most powerful 

 causes. This predisposition is not manifest externally, and sometimes 

 it disappears as age advances. 



A more constant and potent cause, however, is to be found in the 

 presence of grave diseases, and especially those which affect the system 

 generally, producing more or less derangement of all the functions. 

 The various serious epizot'Jtic maladies, enteritis, and all those abdo- 

 minal disorders which give rise to restlessness, tympanitis, cough, as 

 well as those diseases which induce cough — as bronchitis, pneumonia, 

 asthma, etc. — pleurisy and other affections and injuiues accompanied 

 by great pain ; as well as nervous or convulsive derangements — such as 

 tetanus, epilepsy, vertigo, etc., are all set down as causes. 



In acute febrile diseases of the mother, the foetus may perish from 

 the abnormal accumulation of heat ; or chronic or acute anaemia in the 

 female may prove fatal to the foetus, by causing asphyxia in it. 



Certain virulent disorders affecting the female may likewise cause the 

 death and expulsion of the young creature ?» utcro — for example, foot- 

 and-mouth disease and tuberculosis. The foetus of a Cow affected with 

 contagious pleuro-pneumonia, has been found with its lungs affected in 

 a similar manner ;-' and to prove that the transmission of these diseases 

 can be effected in this way, Sheep which were in the uterus when their 

 dam was affected with variola (sheep-pox) were found to resist inocula- 

 tion with the virus of that very malignant malady.' 



Violet baa even rt-moved t>ne of the ovaries from a Cow two months prr^natit without 

 abortion taking place or the animal suffHrini,' in health, and it would prolKibly have gone 

 the full time and reared its Calf if it had not been killed for food. 



' The Cat rarely aborts, and instances are on record in which they have fallen from a 

 considerable height without this accident occurring. Nevertheless, they are liable to 

 miscarry, and a friend who lives near Chatham had a favourite Cat heavyin Kitten, that 

 aborted immedi-itely afU-r being pursued by a strange Dog, which, however, did not 

 •eise it. The accident in this case was evidently due to fear. 



' Barrier descril)es an abortion epizoilty among Cows, in which nearly nil the Calvea 

 were exjielled »live at the fifth tt> the seventh month, but died within eight days after- 

 wards. The principal symptoms were a more or less loud r;lle, the discharge of ruHty- 

 coloured mucus from the nostrils, .and constant loud bellowings. At the autoi)sies the 

 "lungs were tumefied, red, and fleshy, and the bron^;hi filled with the saffron-tinted fluid 

 that fl.iwed from the nostrils." 



' In I he human feniale, Klautsth remarks th.at pregnancy m.ay in such cases l)e brought 

 to an end either by the death of the fa>tus, or less frequently by premature uterine contrac- 

 tions. The foetus mny die owing to (1) deficiency of oxygen ; (2) alteration in temperature ; 

 or (3) direct transmission of the infection. These conditions may he combined. The 

 inconstancy of the transmission of the ii.fection the author would explain by the circum- 

 stance that it can only occur when the normal connection between the maternal and 



