738 Ahortion in Caitle. 
cases out of five, tlie first, second, or third day after birth they begin to 
bellow in a peculiar manner. They cease to suck, are attacked with diar- 
rhoea, and succumb in a few days, sometimes in a few hours. This peculiar 
bellowing seems to be a sure prognostic of the death of the aborted calf.' 
M. Nocard remarks that in cases where calves have been 
bom before the proper time, it has been noticed repeatedly that 
the animals suffer as soon as they are born from diarrhoea, and 
are generally dead within twenty-four hours. Those which live 
over the two days always get on perfectly well afterwards. 
He then goes on to refer to his researches with the idea in his 
mind that the disease is distinctly contagious ; and he says, 
among the aborted cows, even those which are pregnant for the 
first time, there exist, in the cavity of the uterus behind the 
mucous membrane and the membranes of the foetus, and notably 
in the crypts of the cotyledons, various micro-organisms which 
are not found among pregnant cows that have come from a 
country where abortion does not exist. His reference to these 
micro-organisms does not include anything relating to their 
morphology, but he says that they do not appear to exercise 
any injurious action on the mucous membrane of the mother 
either during the period of gestation, which is suddenly inter- 
rupted by the process of abortion, or after abortion. The conclu- 
sion at which he has arrived is that the disease results from 
the action of a specific microbe contained in the uterine mem- 
brane, in the intestines of the fa3tus, and in the discharges 
which take place from the vagina. He goes on to say that, before 
this proposition can acquire an absolutely affirmative character, 
it is necessary that he should be able to produce the malady in 
healthy cows by the inoculation of the pure cultui-e of the 
organisms, i.e., by one or other of the microbes which he had 
isolated, and, further, he adds that these experiments, being 
indispensable for the definite solution of the question, are in 
course of being carried on. 
M. Nocard gives in his paper an account of his means ol 
prevention. He says that every week the floor of the cow- 
stall should be swept and cleansed, and watered widi a solution 
of sulphate of copper, of about 1 ounce to a pint of watei 
(40 grammes to the litre). He formerly injected antisepticf 
into the vagina, but he has given up this practice as useless 
Every morning care should be taken to wash with a sponge 
saturated with the following solution, the vulva, the anus, au( 
the under surface of the tail of all the pregnant cows : — 
' Bullet in, Mmisiire de r Agriculture, Pane, N°, 8, D^c^mbre, 1886, p. 949 
