Ahoriion in Cuttle. 741 
Lent I., was designed to test the effect of simple cohabitation, and there- 
fore neither inoculation nor the introduction of vaginal discharge bv means 
of a cotton-'wool plus was practised. The result in this case was negsitive, 
the cow calving at fall term at the end of three months. 
Erp*riment V. — Two Cheviot ewes, about two months off the time of 
lambing, wen? inoculated in precisely the same manner as the cow of 
Experiment IIL Thirty-eight days afterwards one of the ewes lambed a 
dead lamb, and a day later the other ewe lambed a living but weakly lamb. 
It ought to be mentioned that in this experiment a ewe that had aborted 
on an adjoining farm was placed during the last fortnight along with th© 
two experimental ewes. 
Ejrperimmt VI. — Cotton-wool plugs, previously inserted in the 
^ ■ rina of a cow recently aborted, were introduced into the genital passages 
:wo blaci-faced ewe's, and left there for some time, and subsequently the 
e procedure was repeated with a plug withdrawn from the vagina of an 
rted ewe. Thirty days after the first introduction of the cotton-wool 
. ,r one of the ewes aborted, the lamb being dead and about one month 
before its proper time. The other ewe carried her lamb to full term. 
In regard to the organisms, it appears that there were five 
distinct forms, viz. : — 
1. Diplo-cocci occurring in threes and fours and even in short chains, 
each half of the dumb-bell being from half as large again to twice as largo 
as the micrococcus of erysipelas. 
2. The organism was very like the coccus which Dr. Klein calls the 
Streptococcus of scarlatina. 
3. The organism was a bacillus nearly as broad as the Bacillus anthracis, 
and four or five times as long as broad. 
4. The organism was a long, thin bacilliis, very like that of the Bacillus 
evhtiUt, or hay bacLUus ; but it was considerably smaller than that organism, 
and along with it there was no liquefaction. 
5. In some of the earLier tubes there was Tound a short, thick bacillus, 
bat this organism was lost in the subsequent process of separation. 
The plan which these experienced gentlemen recommend for 
preventing abortion is practically the system adopted by M. 
Xocard — i.e., rain-water containing common salt and bichloride 
of mercury in solution. They, however, advise injection into 
the uterus and vagina ; whereas M. Xocard has decided that 
this system is no longer desirable, and has abandoned it in 
favour of the more simple plan to which I have referred. 
In regard to further observations on the subject of abortion, 
the inquiry should apparently take the direction of experiments 
on cows and ewes (the latrer being less subject to the disease 
than the former), for the purpose of ascertaining whether or 
not these five organisms, or any of them which have been sepa- 
rated from the vaginal discharge, are capable of producing the 
disease. It should also be a matter of inquiry as to the occur- 
rence of abortion among cows which do not hold to the service 
of the bull on several successive occasions. And, in all parts of 
the country where abortion exists in the epizootic form, it is mos^ 
