330 INVEKSIOsr OP "WOMB — GAEGET. 



So far as this has fallen under my observation, it has 

 occurred oftenest about the close of the third or the beginning 

 of the fourth month of pregnancy. I have never known it to 

 assume that semi-infectious or enzootical character which it oc- 

 casionally takes in our great dairies of co ws — though, as a matter 

 of precaution, as well as to give her a better chance, I always 

 prefer to have the ewe that has miscarried, drawn from the 

 bi-eeding flock and put in "the hospital." The aborted lamb 

 and everything that comes with it from the vagina, is also 

 removed from the sheep yard. The lamb is almost invariably 

 dead at birth. I have not been in the habit of administering 

 any medicine to the ewe. * She usually becomes poor and 

 weak unless nursed with great care — her wool ceases to grow, 

 and is very apt to be shed oiF. Sometimes she scarcely 

 recovers her condition during the ensuing summer. It is a 

 very great injury to a ewe to abort, and if she does so the 

 second time, she should invariably be excluded from the 

 breeding flock. 



Invbesiox op the Womb. — This has been sufiiciently 

 noticed at page 145 of this work. 



Gaeget. — This has also been noticed at page 157 under 

 the head of Inflamed Udder. In high-fed English ewes it 

 assumes a more acute and dangerous form than is there 

 described. Hard kernels or tumors form in the udder. The 

 udder itself becomes much swollen, with great heat and 

 tenderness. An ounce or two of Epsom salts with a drachm 

 of ginger, should be administered. If matter forms in any 

 part of the udder, a deep incision should at once be made, the 

 pus squeezed out, the parts well fomented, and if any ofliensive 

 smell proceeds from the wound it should be bathed or 

 syringed two or three times a day with a weak solution of 

 chloride of lime, until it assumes a healthy action. 



In the place of the iodine ointment recommended by me 

 (at page 158) as an application to the udder from the earliest 



" This is frequently the case among the mountain and the moor sheep." American 

 sheep are more modest I I wiil not undertake to say such a thing never occurs, but I 

 never yet saw or heard of one of oar sheep taking the ram after the beginning of 

 pregnancy, though nothing is more common than to allow rams to run with '* in- 

 lambed " ewes the entire winter. 



* Mr. Spooner recommends giving Epsom salts K oz., tincture of opium 1 drachm, 

 powdered camphor ^ drachm, with nourishing gruel : the two latter medicines to be 

 repeated the next day, but not the salts unless the bowels are constipated. Mr, 

 Youattsays, "if the fcetus has been long dead — shown by the fetid smell and the 

 vaginal discharge — the parts should be washed with a weak solution of the chloride 

 of lime ; and some^ of it also injected into the womb." 



