224 Veterinary Obstetrics 



curvature of the uterus /^r rectum and draw the former back- 

 wards and, what is of still greater practical value, may rotate 

 the uterus 90° or J^ revolution on its long axis, by which means 

 the ovaries may be grasped and examined. Every collection 

 in the uterus causes a displacement in the ovaries, they being 

 drawn downward, forward and toward the median line, beneath 

 the distended uterine cornu, so that finding and recognizing them, 

 especially in cows which strain hard, is rendered very difficult, 

 and in the presence of great filling of both horns becomes wholly 

 impossible. 



The uterine horns are smooth and of varying degrees of dis- 

 tension, at one time being relaxed and flat, at others more 

 tense, rounded and sugillating. The contents consist of a 

 thin or thick liquid, which is white, whitish-gray or grayish- 

 yellow; either sero-mucous (myxometra), or, more often, purulent 

 or muco-purulent, odorless or fetid (pyometra). According to 

 its etiology, one may find fragments of fetal envelops, a macerated 

 fetus or individual bones, which latter one may distinguish by 

 careful palpation. 



The ovaries are usually normal and there is found, what should 

 not be underrated from a therapeutic standpoint, in one of them, 

 one, two or three various sized persistent corpora lutea firmly 

 imbedded in the organ, their presence depending upon the failure 

 of their physiologic atrophy to take place. The other ovary has 

 undergone fibrous or cystic degeneration and is from the size of a 

 hickory nut to that of a hen's egg. 



Therapeutics of Pyometra. 



At variance with the general practice and the teachings of ob- 

 stetric authors concerning the handling of pathologic collections 

 in the distended uterus, we have for years followed a course of 

 treatment which has yielded good results in 50 % of all our cases 

 and has been accepted by many of our colleagues as a reliable 

 method. 



Each practitioner well knows that the therapy proposed in our 

 literature for this disease, the prognosis of which is often unfa- 

 vorable, consisting of the injection of astringent and antiseptic 

 agents into the diseased uterus, has a higher theoretic than prac- 

 tical value because, with the closed or but slightly opened os 

 uteri, the sufficient dilation of the cervical canal and the subse- 



