470 
Abortion in Cows. 
nection with an animal aborting (or having recently done so) 
as to cause such in-calver to abort — we should naturally expect 
such circumstances would have arisen, and such results followed, 
in some of the 300 cases mentioned in this article, of lohicfi we 
have not the slightest evidence. 
Most of those suppositions, which I have tabulated as what 
we ought to expect if abortion be due to infection (and which 
we do not find in this affection), are equally applicable if it be 
due to sympathy — especially those relating to isolation, and 
keeping the animals altogether indoors. 
It appears to me that sympathy is assigned to be a cause of 
this malady as a sort of makeshift, when no other theory will 
fit in. It would indeed be sometimes an extremely useful 
therapeutic agent if it would act on the human subject. 
From my recent experience amongst quadrupeds, and my 
more prolonged acquaintance with parturient bipeds, I must 
assert that if sympathy, pure and simple, be ever a cause of 
abortion, it must be an extremely rare one. 
Articles of food now claim our attention. 
Strmo* and all artificial or supplementary food, as cake, roots 
(though the latter was suspected in Case 26), may be excluded ; 
as cases have occurred whilst the animals have been partaking 
of all, but nothing points to any one of them as largely con- 
tributing to this malady, neither being universally given to the 
cattle affected. 
Grass and hay remain for consideration. We know of no 
grass in its normal state or herb capable of acting directly on 
the uterus so as to cause it prematurely to part with its contents. 
A strong purgative might indirectly do so by reflex action, but 
purgation did not accompany nor did it precede the malady in 
these cases. 
Ergot. — But we do know of a fungus, that infests grasses as 
well as food-cereals, which has a special action on the uterus, 
and is capable of causing it prematurely to contract, dnd so to 
bring on the malady under consideration. A short description 
of the growth of this fungus may be useful. 
Ergot (^Claviceps jmrpurea. Fig. 2) is a fungus which attacks 
grasses in the flowering stage. It eventually takes the place of 
the seed, and attains in the cereal rye to the length of nearly an 
inch. It is somewhat smaller in grasses, being to a certain extent, 
I believe, proportional to the size of the seed it replaces, although 
* I have recently examined a field of seeds with whicli a crop of wiieat is 
growing ; I found a quantity of crgotised rye-gmss. If cows be fed witli cither 
the grain or straw from such a field, we might have ergot introduced from an 
imsuspectcd source. 
