DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS. 161 



sidence of the labor pains, the mouth of the womb may be dilated by 

 the fingers, by the insertion of sponge tents, or by a mechanical 

 dilator (PI. XX, fig. 6) the fetal membranes jnay be ruptured and the 

 calf extracted. After the removal of the calf and its membranes the 

 danger of putrid poisoning may be obviated by injecting the anti- 

 septic solution advised in the paragraph above. 



ABORTION (SLINKING THE CALp). 



Technically, abortion is the term used for the expulsion of the off- 

 spring before it can live out of the womb. Its expulsion after it is 

 capable of an independent existence is premature parturition. In the 

 cow this may be after seven and one-half months of pregnancy. Earl 

 Spencer failed to raise any calf born before the two hundred and forty- 

 second day. Dairymen use the term abortion for the expulsion of the 

 product of conception at any time before the completion of the full 

 period of a normal pregnancy, and in this sense it will be employed 

 in this article. 



Abortion in cows is either contagious or noncontagious. It does not 

 follow that the contagium is the sole cause in every case in which it is 

 present. We know that the organized germs of contagion vary much 

 in potency at different times, and that the animal system also varies 

 in susceptibility to their attack. The germ may therefore be present 

 in a herd without any manifest injury, its disease-producing power 

 having for the time abated considerably, or the whole herd being in a 

 condition of comparative insusceptibility. At other times the same 

 germ may have become so virulent that almost all pregnant cows suc- 

 cumb to its force, dr the herd may have been subjected to other causes 

 of abortion which, though of themselves powerless to actually cause 

 abortion, may yet so predispose the animals that even the weaker 

 germ will operate with destructive effect. In dealing with this dis- 

 ease, therefore, it is the part of wisdom not to rest satisfied with the 

 discovery and removal of one specific cause, but rather to exert one- 

 self to find every existent cause and to secure a remedy by correcting 

 all the harmful conditions. 



CAUSES OF NONCONTAGIOUS ABORTION. 



As abortion most frequently occurs at those three-week intervals 

 at which the cow would have been in heat if nonpregnant, we may 

 assume a predisposition at such times due to a periodicity in the 

 nervous system and functions. Poor condition, weakness, and a too 

 watery state of the blood is often a predisposing cause. This in its 

 turn may result from poor or insufficient food, from the excessive 

 drain upon the udder while bearing the calf, from the use of food 

 deficient in certain essential elements, like the nitrogenous constitu- 

 ents or albuminoids, from chronic wasting diseases, from roundworms 



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