224 The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser. 



I'idiiig of animals in heat, diseases of tlie abdominal organs, 

 (tympanitis from wet, frosted or musty fodder, inflamma- 

 tion of the bowels, diarrhoea, poisoning by imtants taken 

 with the food or otherwise, renal calculi or other diseases 

 of the kidneys or bladder,) stalls too much inclined back- 

 ward, overfeeding, plethora, hot, damp, relaxing stables, 

 severe muscular exertion after long rest, exhausting feed- 

 ing for milk at the expense of the system, breeding at too 

 early an age, proximity to or contact with slaughter-houses 

 or dead and decomposing animal matter, especially the 

 abortion discharges of other animals, drinking putrid 

 or iced water, disease, deformity or death of the foetus, 

 feeding on ergoted grasses or smutty wheat or com, and, 

 finally, the presence in the passages of a microscopic veg- 

 etable parasite (leptothrix vaginalis) which is easily trans- 

 ferred from one animal to another so as to procure abor- 

 tion. 



Symptoms. In the early stages of gestation abortion 

 often takes place without any warning and is only ascer- 

 tained by the animal again coming in heat. Later the 

 preliminary signs and progress may be those of an ordi- 

 nary parturition, or in other cases a whitish muco-purulent 

 discharge may take place from the vulva for some time 

 before abortion occurs. A filling of the udder and a loose, 

 flaccid condition of the external generative organs often 

 furnish premonitions. 



Prevention. Treatment. Avoid the various causes above 

 named when found to exist. Especially should attention 

 be given to secure a diet and regimen which sh aU obviate in- 

 digestion, to eradicate from the hay-fields aU irritant plants, 

 to feed a certain amount of roots in winter to obviate urin- 

 nary calculi, to cut meadows subject to ergot before they 

 run to seed, or better still to plow them up and put imder 

 a rotation of other crops, to feed roots with ergoted hay or 

 smutty corn if these must be consumed, to let the system 

 be somewhat developed before breeding and not to milk 

 Ijop heavily the first year, to give pure air and water 



