502 
Abortion in Cows. 
properties, purity or impurity, so is the blood affected. To 
realise the changes produced in the blood by food and other 
agents, it is only necessary to remember how quickly and with 
what facility many of them can be recognised in the secretions 
which are elaborated from it. A familiar example of this is 
seen in the use of turnips, which is detected in the butter of 
cows consuming them \ and the use of many medicinal agents 
can be detected by the chemist in the milk and urine of animals 
to which they have been given. In 'Taylor on Poisons,' cases 
are quoted in which death and abortion of the foetus had been 
produced experimentally in animals by the administration of 
medicines and mineral poisons, given both in food and by 
subcutaneous absorption, the agents being afterwards detected 
in the foetus, its membrane, and fluids. The most common 
impurities found in water, as supplied to cows, are decaying 
vegetable matter, sewage, soakage from manure, and, in mining 
districts, iron and waste refuse materials in solution ; of these, 
sewage is in my opinion the most active and prolific cause of 
abortion ; nor need we wonder at this, for by analysis and 
microscopic examination it is found to contain not only in- 
jurious organic matter, but that it swarms with bacteria and 
other living organisms, with which we are sufficiently acquainted 
to know that they play an important part in producing morbid 
changes and disease. Water may be largely contaminated with 
sewage and other impurities without producing any visible 
injurious effects upon non-breeding adult animals ; but in preg- 
nant animals the delicate foetus is like a sensitive barometer, its 
development and life depending absolutely upon the purity of 
the maternal blood ; it is influenced by variations and agents, 
against which independent life may be proof. 
Bulls are often the unsuspected cause of abortion. Some 
bulls, apparently healthy, vigorous, and good servers — bulls, too, 
that have been good stock-getters — appear to lose their procreative 
powers. Cows that are served by them are seldom settled, and 
if so, often abort. There is a want of vitality, varying in 
degree, in the spermatozoa, which prevents the ovum or foetus 
reaching maturity, and thus causing abortion at different stages 
of gestation. This impotency may be temporary or permanent, 
and is the cause of many cows being spoiled ; for, in addition to 
the risks of disease set up by abortion, the repeated inefficient 
service of such bulls often produces such an irritable condition 
in the uterus of the cow, that from being a sure breeder she is 
reduced to a doubtful one. 
Abortion may be due to specific disease of the generative 
organs. I know of one disastrous outbreak that was, in my 
opinion, clearly traceable to this cause. A bull was freely used, 
before it was observed that he was suffering from gonorrhoea. 
