NOSTRUMS AND PANACEiE AGAINST 

 STERILITY. 



Few departments of veterinary practice offer so inviting a field 

 for the plying of the sale of nostrums and the application of more 

 or less mythical proceedings, as sterility. To the average 

 layman, ovulation, fertilization and the development of the 

 embryo are as a mysterious sealed book, which gives to the 

 quack an open field for plying his method of chicanery. Some- 

 times the remedies are not devoid of merit in proper cases, but 

 lose their value by being applied uniformly in a// cases of sterility, 

 regardless of the cause at work in a given case. 



Veterinarians in America indirectly support this chicanery by 

 failure to extend scientific aid. Science and charlatanism 

 are incompatible and, whenever the veterinarians of breed- 

 ing areas study and understand sterility and intelligently 

 advise owners of' sterile animals, quackery in this respect must 

 cease. The veterinarian is helpless in combatting sterilitj' until 

 he first learns well the normal structure and functions of the 

 genital system ; he must first comprehend fertility ere, he can 

 understand sterility. Not only does he need have a theoretic 

 knowledge of normal breeding, but he must have a clinical 

 knowledge. He must be able, by manual exploration, to locate 

 and recognize the various internal generative organs in our larger 

 domestic animals and to determine by such examination whether 

 they be normal or abnormal. This does not come by the reading 

 of books nor by making post mortem examinations. The knowl- 

 edge does not come to a man in an hour or a day. It is to be 

 learned by a conscientious study upon the living animal and 

 competency is attained only by long and faithful work. 



When ability has been acquired, and the veterinarian can say 

 that an ovarian abcess is present, and speak with authority upon 

 the point, the intelligent owner will not resort to nostrums, nor 

 cause the os uteri to be dilated. He will not try impregnators 

 nor resort to artificial insemination. So, in each case, when the 

 veterinarian is able to point out the difficulty with authority, 

 the owner will desire the application of a remedy which will 

 reasonably tend to remove the cause. As already stated, a pre- 

 viously sterile animal may suddenly and unexpectedly conceive.. 

 i8 273 



