41 8 Veterinary Obstetrics 



when each must be affected similarly. In a multiparous uterus, 

 the rupture may occur at any part of the gravid organ and one, 

 two or more adjacent fetuses escape through the opening. 



The accident usually causes fatal shock or hemorrhage of the 

 mother. Otherwise, the fetus may at once perish, infection 

 of its body and membranes, through the os uteri, follow, leading 

 quickly to fatal sepsis of the mother, or abscessation may follow, 

 the adherent surrounding tissues constituting the abscess wall 

 and the decomposing fetus and membranes, the abscess contents. 

 The abscess may rupture externally through the abdominal 

 walls or internally into the intestina.l tract. 



Escaping these immediate dangers, should the chorion remain 

 partially attached to the placenta, the fetus may continue to live 

 up to the normal period of birth or it may perish immediately, 

 but, the OS uteri remaining sealed or infection otherwise avoided, 

 the fetus remains as an inert body for an indefinite period, to 

 constitute a variety of extra-uterine pregnancy. 



4. It is claimed by some writers that a primary abdominal im- 

 pregnation may take place — that is, an ovum may drop into the 

 peritoneal cavity and there become impregnated by a spermato- 

 zoon, which has traversed the uterus, cornu and oviduct and 

 escaped, through the pavilion, into the peritoneal cavity. The 

 embryo becomes attached to the peritoneal surface and develops 

 in a more or less normal way. No unquestioned case of primary 

 abdominal pregnancy has yet been seen. The possibility of such 

 an occurrence has not been disproven. The cases thus far cited 

 to prove the actual occurrence have all been faulty, in some par- 

 ticular, which serves to throw a doubt upon the correctness of 

 the alleged occurrence. 



The course of abdominal pregnancy in animals, so far as has 

 been observed and recorded, is that the fetus or fetuses acquire 

 a more or less rigid attachment to the abdominal walls or some 

 of the viscera, and the fetal membranes closely invest the fetal 

 body in such a way as to compress it into the smallest possible 

 space. In the cases ordinarily observed, the fetus or fetuses are 

 closely enveloped in firm membranes without any intervening 

 liquids, so that the covering, which may be regarded as the am- 

 nion, is in direct contact with the hair of the fetus and cannot 

 readily be stripped away from it. This is well shown in Fig. 81. 



The fetus usually seems to have been normal originally, but 



