234 VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



experience of the past stands for anything, these suggestions will 

 be found worthy of careful consideration. 



It is well known to all practical breeders that in the mare, as 

 in all other animals, but probably in the mare more than any 

 other, the foetus during its development and growth in the uterus 

 (womb) assumes all sorts of positions, some of which are normal 

 and favorable to spontaneous and unaided birth, and many others 

 which are abnormal and decidedly unfavorable to birth wnthout 

 the intervention of the surgeon; these positions are described as 

 ^^presentations'' according as the head, fore feet, hind feet,' 

 croup, etc. , first presents itself to the hand of the exploring sur- 

 geon; the variety of these presentations is very numerous, and 

 while the tissues of the womb, and the canal through which the 

 foetus has to pass during the act of being born, are extremely 

 mobile and elastic, so much so that foetuses in all sorts of abnor- 

 mal positions have been brought into the world with more or less 

 surgical force, there is a limit to the extent to which the parts 

 will relax and for the good both of the mother and her offspring, 

 it is of the first importance that this — under the most favorable 

 circumstances — painful fulfillment of nature's demands should be 

 carried out under the most favorable conditions, and although the 

 allopathist, the orthodox practitioner as he delights to call him- 

 self, has not, with all his vaunted boasting, discovered anything 

 to alleviate nature's pain at this critical period save the anaesthetic 

 Chloroform, the much maligned homceopathist has found out that 

 Pulsatilla is an agent in drug form capable not only of preparing 

 the womb for the fulfillment of its natural functions under favor- 

 able and comparatively easy conditions, but that this valuable 

 plant is capable of so influencing the maternal organs that in the 

 event of a FALSE or complicated PRESEXTATioisr the foetus will, 

 under its influence, right itself sufficiently to be born without ex- 

 traneous or surgical aid, and that without producing a permanent 

 displacement of the womb w'hich, in some instances, is the result 

 of the rough usage and the violent methods resorted to when diffi- 

 cult presentations occur. It may not be generally known to 

 breeders, but it is a point they ought to be made aware of and to 

 which they should give serious consideration, that operative ob- 

 stetric surgery of the very crude and rough description to which so 

 many mares are subjected, is responsible in quite a considerable 



