310 MATERXAL DYSTOKIA. 



to be of recent discovery ; for though it was clearly and explicitly in- 

 dicated in the last century by Boutrolle [Parfait Boiivier, second edition, 

 1766), yet it was not until after much observation and discussion in 

 this century that such a condition was proved to be possible. Boutrolle 

 wrote : " If it is possible to pass two or three fingers into the os {yelVere), 

 the hand and arm may be forced through ; but if, on the contrary, a 

 finger cannot be passed into it, and the opening is found to be turning, 

 it is a sign that the os is twisted — that it has made a half-turn on itself 

 — and it is impossible to enter it." 



Though Veterinary Science had gained a sound footing in France 

 soon after the publication of Boutrolle's "Perfect Cowherd," yet its 

 students do not appear to have paid any heed to the amateur's descrip- 

 tion of the spiral twist of the cervix uteri, the difficulty in penetrating 

 the 05, and the impossibility of birth taking place through it. In- 

 difference or incredulity may have prevailed ; and it was not until 

 painful experience had awakened attention to the existence of the 

 accident, that the veterinarians of this century began to notice it. 



Nevertheless, in France, Boutrolle's "Cowherd" appears to have 

 been carefully read and usefully studied by those for whom it was 

 written — the country-folks or cowmen, or he may have gained his 

 knowledge from these; for, according to Saint -Cyr, one of their 

 great problems in cases of difficult parturition — a problem not con- 

 fined to the cowherds of France— was to discover if the calving Cow 

 was not " barree " (obstructed), if it had not the torche, veliere, or 

 portiere torse, torle, or tordue (cervix twisted), terms employed accord- 

 ing to the localities and dialects, and which signify what Boutrolle 

 has distinctly described. 



At the commencement of this century, however, we are informed by 

 Rainard that Maurin of Cantal, and Yieillard of Brioude, two of his 

 pupils, had witnessed this form of dystokia. 



In France, other veterinary observers afterwards published similar 

 cases, the first in order being Lecoq, of Bayeux, w^ho in 1837 had 

 occasion to note this accident. In a Memoire sur le part lahoricux,^ 

 he expresses his surprise at the silence prevailing among veter- 

 inary authorities with regard to this condition, which was met with 

 from time to time, and was well enough known to breeders. In 

 describing the symptoms he had noted, Lecoq says : " The hand 

 having been introduced into the vagina, and pushed as far as the neck 

 of the uterus, encountered a kind of valve obstructing the entrance to 

 the latter. I was beyond the part I had taken for a valve, and had 

 got into a narrow canal whicJi Jiad the form of a scrcic [ayant la forme 

 d'une vis). The Cow died on the following day without having been 

 delivered, and at the autopsy it was found that the uterus was com- 

 pletely turned upside-down — the superior face having become the 

 inferior — and that this version had taken place from right to left." 



The first Continental veterinarian who observed — or rather, who 

 described — a complete rotation of the uterus (the previous cases recorded 

 were only those of haK-rotation) was Eichner, a professor at the Berne 

 (Switzerland) Veterinary School, who, in his " Systematic Treatise on 

 the Diseases of the Bovine Species " (published in 1810), mentions it, 

 and advises rolling the body of the Cow as a means of remedying the 

 accident. In 1842, Blickenstorfer, professor at the Zurich Veterinary 

 School, also wrote a memoir on it. The first in France to direct special 



' Comptes Rtndus de la Sociefe Vittrhiairt du Calvudof< tt de la Mavche, 1838. 



