486 Veterinary Obstetrics 



extracting an aborted fetus, who, returning to their own estab- 

 lishments, carried with them the germs of the disease and trans- 

 mitted it to their own mares. This experience was repeated 

 several times, with the uniform result that the disease was spread 

 wherever the men went into other stables, after having visited 

 those where the disease existed. It appears quite unnecessary 

 that the visitor to an infected stable or pasture should handle the 

 mare which has aborted, the after-birth or the aborted fetus, but 

 he may readily carry the infection upon shoes or other portions 

 of clothing which may chance to come in contact with infected 

 bedding or ground. This method of distributing the disease 

 seems to Guillerey one of the most important and dangerous. 

 Neighbors habitually, and without thought, visit each other's 

 premises and examine and handle diseased mares, and thus may 

 readily carry the infection to their own or other premises, in 

 such a manner that it is frequently difficult to trace. Guillerey 

 also observed cases of abortion which were traceable to the use, 

 upon a pregnant mare, of a blanket which had been used upon 

 another mare, which had recently aborted. The blanket had be- 

 come somewhat soiled by the disharges. In another case, it 

 seemed to him that the disease was traceable to a harness that 

 had been used upon an aborted mare and which had then been 

 transferred to an uninfected pregnant mare. 



If one introduces a mare from an infected stable into a stable 

 of pregnant mares, whether the new mare has recently aborted 

 or soon aborts, she constitutes a certain vehicle for the transmis- 

 sion of the disease into the uninfected stable. Guillerey relates 

 a case in which a peasant placed his pregnant mare in the 

 stable of a distant neighbor, where abortion had existed. The 

 mare, in due time, aborted and constituted a new center of in- 

 fection. 



When the infection has once been introduced into a stable or 

 harem of mares, the spread of the disease is rapid and certain, 

 although the exact method by which it comes about is not 

 definitely known. It probably occurs largely from direct: 

 contact. The tail of the mare becomes readily and inevitably 

 soiled by any discharges of the vulva and creates an excellent 

 vehicle by which the infection can be transmitted to a neighbor- 

 ing animal. Since mares, as a rule, come in comparatively close 

 contact, where they may strike each other about the vulva with. 



