FUNCTIONS OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS. 157 



"This morning (the 15th July), between ten and eleven 

 o'clock, I was requested to attend an Irish setter bitch, which, 

 I was informed, had yesterday afternoon given birth to one 

 dead and three live puppies, and since eleven o'clock last 

 night had been in severe labor with what the owner believed 

 to be a ' cross-birth.' 



" When I arrived the bitch was lying prostrate, with hurried 

 respiration, rapid small pulse, eyes sunk, and extremities cold. 

 On examination per vaginum,. I found one fore-leg of a whelp 

 presented, and the head doubled back within the womb. The 

 leg in question had been so tugged at that it was dislocated, 

 and almost severed from the shoulder ; the vaginal parts were 

 extremely inflamed, being of a deep purple tint and very 

 •swollen. After first administering a little brandy and milk 

 to my patient, I placed a noose round the presented limb and 

 returned it within the womb, and then endeavored to bring 

 the head into position, but without success. As the poor 

 creature was now so extremely exhausted, in fact, too weak 

 to stand, and the pains were very feeble and at long intervals, 

 I suggested — as the only chance for the mother, and also 

 because the offspring were valuable and several yet unborn — 

 the Cesarean operation, which the owner consented to. 



Placing her under chloroform, on a table, I made a section 

 in the left iliac region, through the abdominal muscles and 

 peritoneum ; and then, exposing the uterus, I incised it be- 

 tween four and five inches, and removed eight whelps — six 

 alive and two dead.* I closed the uterine opening with con- 

 tinuous silk suture, the peritoneum and abdominal muscles 

 with continuous gut suture, and the skin with interrupted linen- 

 thread suture. 



" The parts were then sponged with warm water : a little 

 brandy and inilk, with ten drops of laudanum, administered, 



* The uterm, internally, was intensely inflamed— the os being perfectly 

 black, and the whole membrane more or less livid. One portion of in- 

 testine, just observable, was, also much inflamed. My prognosis from 

 these appearances and other conditions of the bitch, was unfavorable. 



