492 Diseases of the Genital Organs 



the ideal of one calf per cow each year. Pedigreed dairy 

 herds ordinarily do no worse. If abortion were defined as 

 the failure to produce young, there would be greater statis- 

 tical harmony between the various species and classes of 

 animals. 



I have known no herd of cattle, whether of dairy or beef 

 breed, where abortion has not been observed. I know of no 

 authentic record of a herd in which abortion is not seen. 

 The frequency of abortion varies widely in different herds 

 and at different times. Abortion is one of many phenomena 

 due to infection within the pregnant uterus. If the forma- 

 tion of ova or spermatozoa is prevented by infection, if the 

 genital cells are destroyed after being formed, or if the fer- 

 tilized ovum or the minute embryo is destroyed, the disaster 

 passes unseen and statistically becomes sterility. Abortion 

 is, therefore, logically a phenomenon usually of the fifth to 

 the seventh month of pregnancy, not because the intra- 

 uterine young perishes most frequently, or even so often, 

 at this period, but because the disaster is most frequently 

 observed at this time. After the seventh month, the fetus 

 may be expelled alive and the phenomenon is called prema- 

 ture birth; a fetal cadaver may be expelled at full term and 

 is called stillbirth; or a fatally infected calf may be born at 

 full term and die from intra-uterine infection, but that is 

 known as white scours or pneumonia, or otherwise. So dis- 

 ease and death throughout the entire reproductive process 

 is referable to a group of infections and the resulting dis- 

 aster is differently designated according to the date and 

 manner of its occurrence, but the final outcome is the same 

 — non-production. 



Abortion is the result of two concurrent phenomena — ^the 

 death of the fetus, and the existence of an endometritis of 

 the pregnant animal of such a character as to cause the 

 uterus to contract and evacuate its contents. In all recorded 

 autopsies of cows which had recently aborted or were in the 

 act of aborting at the time of slaughter, there have been 

 recognized indisputable evidences of the presence of active 

 infection. There has always been a definite cervical endo- 



