148 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



impaired vigor, with too often lessened fertility as well as increased 

 predisposition to disease. When the heifers of the race have for gen- 

 eration after generation been bred under a year old, the demand for 

 the nourishment of the fetus is too great a drain on the immature 

 animal, which accordingly remains small and stunted. As it fails to 

 develop in size, so every organ fails to be nourished to perfection. 

 Similarly with the immature bull put to too many cows; he fails to 

 develop his full size, vigor, or stamina, and transfers his acquired 

 weakness to his progeny. An increasing number of barren females 

 and an increasing proclivity to abortions are the necessary results of 

 both courses. "When this early breeding has occurred accidentally it 

 is well to dry up the dam just after calving, and to avoid having her 

 served again until full grown. 



Some highly fed and plethoric females seem to escape conception by 

 the very intensity of the generative ardor. The frequent passage of 

 urine, accompanied by contractions of the womb and vagina and a 

 profuse secretion from their surfaces, leads to the expulsion of the 

 semen after it has been lodged in the genital passages. This may be 

 remedied somewhat by bleeding the cow shortly before putting to the 

 bull, so as to diminish the richness and stimulating quality of the 

 blood ; or better by giving 1| pounds of Epsom salts a day or two 

 before she comes in heat, and subjecting her at the same time to a 

 spare diet. Should the excessive ardor of the cow not be controlla- 

 ble in this way, she may be shut up for a day or two, until the heat is 

 passing off, when under the lessened excitement the semen is more 

 likely to be retained. 



The various diseases of the ovaries, their tubes, the womb, the tes- 

 ticles and their excretory ducts, as referred to under "Excess of gen- 

 erative ardor," are causes of barrenness. In this connection it may 

 be named that the discharges consequent on calving are fatal to the 

 vitality of semen introduced before these have ceased to flow; hence 

 service too soon after calving, or that of a cow which has had the 

 womb or genital passages injured so as to keep up a muco-purulent 

 flow until the animal comes in heat, is liable to fail of conception. 

 Any such discharge should be first arrested by repeated injections as 

 for leucorrhea, after which the male may be admitted. 



Feeding on a very saccharine diet, which greatly favors the deposi- 

 tion of fat, seems to have an even more direct effect in preventing 

 conception during such regimen. Among other causes of barrenness 

 are all those that favor abortion, ergoted grasses, smutty wheat or 

 corn, laxative or diuretic drinking water, and any improper or musty 

 feed that causes indigestions, colics, and diseases of the urinary 

 organs, notably gravel; also savin, rue, cantharides, and all other 

 irritants of the bowels or kidneys. 



Hermaphrodites are barren, of course, as their sexual organs are 

 not distinctively either male or female. The heifer born as a twin 



