ANOMALIES OF LACTATION. 



427 



3. Alterations produced by foreign matters : bitter, rancid, color- 

 ing, poisonous, and medicamentous substances, and by pathological 

 products, blood, etc. 



1 . Ag-alorrhea : Drying"-up of the Milk Secretion. 



Etiology. Agalorrhea, or agalactia, constitutes one of the first 

 symptoms of the internal diseases, and especially of gastric or 

 intestinal affections. But it may be produced by a food of bad 

 quality, prolonged abstinence, fatiguing work, mastitis, incomplete 

 development or fatty degeneration of the mammae, and congestion 

 of these organs at the period of heat. Certain phenomena of a 

 psychical kind, such as the taking away of the young, or the change 

 of stable, fear at the time of milking when performed by a stranger, 

 etc., may equally influence the lacteal secretion. 



Agalorrhea, quite common in primipara, is more frequent in the 

 mare than in our other domestic females (we must not classify with 

 -agalorrhea the vice of " auto-suction," any more than that of 

 suction by other animals. In some cases it occurs without any 

 possibility of detecting its cause. Among the anti-galactopoietic 

 medicaments we must mention : Atropia Belladonna, Hyoscyamus 

 niger, Datura stramonium, Colchicum autumnale, Qonium macula- 

 turn, and the iodide preparations. 



Treatment. If the cause of agalorrhea can be recognized, it 

 should be suppressed first; good food will then have to be given, 

 and preferably liquid food (slops, malt); we may resort finally to 

 galactopoietic medicaments, among which we recognize especially 

 the stibiates (black and golden sulphuret of antimony), sulphur, 

 fennel, juniper berries, the fruit of the cumin, anise, strophanthus, 

 pilocarpine, etc. These agents are given in a separate or asso- 

 ciated form. 



Galactophor powder, which we employ, is thus composed : 



R. — Sulphuret of antimony (nig.) 100 grammes. 



Sulphur ... 

 Powdered fennel seed, 

 Powdered caraway seed. 

 Powdered juniper berries. 

 Sodium chloride 



I 



àâ 



500 



150 



50 



te 



A tablespoonfal at each meal for the cow, and a teaspoonful for the goat. 



We may observe in the females of our different species an anomaly 

 which is opposed to agalactia, and which consists in the unusual 



