ACCIDENTS OF PllEGNAXCV. 223 



a rattling noise when breathing, accompanied by the discharge of a 

 rusty-coloured mucilaginous lluid from the nostrils ; they are attacked 

 by diarrhaa ; they bellow continually, and are always emaciated and 

 flabby, the gums and palate being pale, and the umbilical vessels livid 

 and withered-looking. The dyspna^a and great weakness evinced by 

 them shows that they are not properly organised. Nocard believes that 

 such Calves die from the same cause as those which are aborted dead. 

 Those which are dead when expelled exhibit indications of having ceased 

 to live a short time previously. 



As has been stated, all the animals on a pasture or in a shed where 

 the disease prevails, do not abort at the same time, but at intervals. 

 \Vhen one aborts, another — its neighbour perhaps — appears to prepare 

 for the event, which may occur in about eight days ; then some days 

 after this it is the turn of another, and so on until two-thirds, or perhaps 

 even all, of the pregnant Cows beyond three months' gestation have 

 aborted. 



It has also been mentioned that it is only after being some time in 

 sheds in which the disease is present, that newly purchased pregnant 

 Cows are attacked ; those which have passed their eighth month and 

 are near calving escape abortion. 



Darreau alludes to instances in wliich a pregnant Cow, leaving a 

 shed in which abortions prevailed, and transferred to another where the 

 accident had not been seen, would remain all right for some time, then 

 suddenly miscarry, and in the course of about fifteen days other abor- 

 tions would occur in this shed — testifying to the danger of keeping 

 pregnant Cows in contact with or in proximity to those which have 

 miscarried in this way. It has also been stated that an animal which 

 aborts either remains sterile, or has always a tendency to abort again. 

 But it has been obser\'ed that if Cows are well fed, the period that 

 elapses after each abortion is often longer ; so that if a Cow aborts the 

 first time at six months, it will do so again at the seventh month, and 

 the third time a little before the ninth month, reaching its full period in 

 three pregnancies. 



The symptoms of infectious abortion in the Mare do not differ much 

 from those observed in the Cow. Very often nothing at all is noticed, 

 the animal appearing in as good health as usual ; in other instances 

 there is uneasiness, which might pass without attracting much atten- 

 tion. In the American outbreaks, very often the first indication 

 observ'ed was the return of oestrum in Mares supposed to be some 

 months pregnant ; and the animals being at pasture, the expelled 

 foetuses escaped detection, until in some of the Mares pregnancy had 

 considerably advanced, when the size of the abortions led to the dis- 

 covery that the disease was rife. The Foals that lived for a short time 

 had inflammation of the joints, which often ran on to suppuration, and 

 this was ascribed to the same organism which had caused the abortion. 



Pathological An.\tomy. — The appearances observed in the uterus 

 and its contents in infectious abortion have already been briefly 

 alluded to when describing Nocard's investigations, and there is not 

 much to be added. The foetal envelopes are generally nmch altered in 

 Bovines — looking as if macerated, and covered with pus or lymph-like 

 flakes ; while the liquor amnii is turbid, and sometimes flocculent. The 

 mucous membrane of the uterus it often very congested. In America, 

 in the case of the Mares, the foetal membranes in one outbreak were 



