724 Diseases of the Genital Organs 



taining an abundance of vigorous spirilla. One of the ewes 

 expelled a macerating fetal cadaver fourteen days after the 

 inoculation. The maceration indicated that it had died at a 

 period quite in advance of its expulsion, but hovi? long before 

 could not be told. It may have been dead v^^hen the inocula- 

 tion was made. The ewe was immediately slaughtered, but 

 no spirilla were obtained from either uterus or fetus. Cul- 

 tures showed streptococcus viridans and colon-aerogenes. 

 The other ewe gave birth to an apparently healthy lamb 

 thirty-two days after inoculation. Both animals were des- 

 troyed. Spirilla were recovered from the uterus of the ewe, 

 but not from the lamb. Consequently the spirillum was re- 

 covered from the apparently healthy ewe but could not be 

 found in the aborter or abort. 



We also inoculated in the jugular two pregnant cows with 

 20 cc. of the same material as that used in the ewes. One 

 of these was 64 days pregnant, pregnancy having been veri- 

 fied by rectal palpation. She was not observed to abort but 

 was in estrum forty days after inoculation and her uterus 

 found empty. Cultures obtained from her uterus with cath- 

 eter showed staphylococci. Immediately after the inocula- 

 tion she had shown alarming symptoms resembling anaphy- 

 laxis, but these passed in two or three hours. She evidently 

 expelled an embryonic cadaver subsequent to the inoculation 

 but there was no conclusive evidence of the cause of the 

 abortion. She had aborted three years before, was out of 

 an aborting cow, and her sire was in service in a virulently 

 infected herd. She was pregnant by an apparently healthy 

 bull. 



As the other heifer had been purchased, she was without 

 history. She was well advanced in pregnancy and gave 

 birth sixty-five days after inoculation to a very poor, weak 

 calf weighing 49 pounds. Fluid siphoned from her stomach 

 yielded staphylococci. The calf lived and remains in the 

 herd. Her behavior as a calf is shown in Figs. 208-209. 



Our experiments failed to show that the spirillum causes 

 abortion in sheep, although it probably plays an important 

 part. These experiments are essentially parallel in results 



