18 
Now, we acknowledge that the treatment of the ovarial 
conditions has been quite often a successful one in regard to 
the sterility of the animals, but there is also a number of re- 
ports where it was of very little or no use. 
This is not to be wondered at; for just as the dilatation 
of the cervix, is quite often a very successful operation, 
without being a cure for all sterility cases, so the ovarial 
treatment has had many successes; but there are also cases 
with no improvement. 
If one stops to consider the conditions which are pre- 
valent, especially in the big stables, then one must come to 
the conclusion that the ovary treatment is too one-sided to 
be efficient. There are too many primary lesions to permit 
the treatment of the secondary lesions to be sufficient. 
It is further very unlikely that such a percentage of ani- 
mals should suffer from ovarial diseases as Poulsen reports. 
Neither women nor the domesticated animals are so afflicted 
nor is the ovary considered there to be the chief source of 
sterility troubles. Another fact to be considered is the fre- 
quency of metritis in cows, undoubtedly a cause of sterility. 
It is well known that cows which have suffered from septic 
metritis, retentio secundinarum, torsio uteri etc., very often 
become sterile. This is, of course, the result of a chronic 
metritis. Cows which have a metritis from the cause men- 
tioned, are apparently quite common; if one adds the cows 
which have had infectious abortion, one will have a good 
percentage of animals, whose sterile condition can be 
explained quite easily. I have found that the permanent or 
temporary sterility of cows which have aborted depends very 
largely on the degree and the chronicity of the metritis 
generally connected with the abortus. The metritis again is 
much influenced by the retention or removal of the placenta, 
and by the treatment of the cow. I never paid any attention 
to the yellow body in cows which had aborted; I treated the 
metritis at once and never had any trouble. This method I 
