DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE OBGANS. 161 



the result may prove fatal to both mother and offspring. On the 

 other hand, I have known extreme cases that came to the natural term 

 without help and produced a living calf, after which the dam did 

 well. The natural resort is to draw off a portion of the fluid through 

 a hollow needle passed through the neck of the womb or through its 

 tense wall adjacent. This may be repeated several times, as de- 

 manded, to relieve the cow from the injurious distention. 



PARALYSIS OP THE HIND PARTS. 



In ill-fed, weak, imthrifty cows palsy of the hind limbs and tail 

 may appear in the last weeks of pregnancy. The anus and rectum 

 may participate in the palsy so far as to prevent defecation, and the 

 rectum is more or less completely impacted. Exposure to wet and 

 cold are often accessory causes, though the low condition, general 

 weakness, and the pressure on the nerves going to the hind limbs are 

 not to be forgotten. Something may be done for these cases by a 

 warm, dry bed, an abundant diet fed warm, frictions with straw 

 wisps or with a liniment of equal parts of oil of turpentine and sweet 

 oil on the loins, croup, and limbs, bj' the daily use of ginger and gen- 

 tian, by the cautious administration of strychnia (1 grain twice 

 daily), and by sending a current of electricity daily from the loins 

 through the various groups of muscles in the hind limbs. The case 

 becomes increasingly hopeful after calving, though some days may 

 still elapse before the animal can support herself upon her limbs. 



EXTRAUTERINE GESTATION (FETUS DEVELOPING OUTSIDE THE 



WOMB). 



These curious cases are rare and are usually divided into three 

 types: (1) That in which the fetus is formed in or on the ovary 

 (ovarian gestation) ; (2) that in which it is lodged in the Fallopian 

 tube, or canal between the ovary and Avomb (tubal gestation) ; and 

 (3) that in which it is lodged in the abdominal cavity and attached 

 to one or more of its contents from which it draws its nourishment 

 (abdominal gestation). Undoubted cases of the first and last varie- 

 ties are recorded as occurring in the cow. The explanation of such 

 cases is to be found in the fact that the actively moving sperm cells 

 (spermatozoa) thrown into the womb have made their way through 

 the Fallopian tubes to the ovary. If they met and impregnated an 

 ovum in the tube, and if the consequent growth of that ovum pre- 

 vented its descent and caused its imprisonment within the tube, it 

 developed there, getting attached to and drawing nourishment from 

 the mucous walls. Such product has its development arrested by 

 compression by the undilatable tube, or, bursting through the walls 

 33071°— 16 11 



