SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 645 
Edinburgh; J. Aitken, V.S., Edinburgh; W. D. Connachie, Y.S., 
Selkirk; and J. Mitchell, V.S., Musselburgh, Honorary Secretary. 
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved, after 
which Mr. Balfour, V.S., Kirkcaldy, and Mr. Brown, Y.S., West 
Calder, were elected members of the Society. 
Mr. Baird feelingly drew attention to the death of one of the 
members since they last met (Mr. Tod, of Leith), from an insidious 
disease, which had prevented him from taking such an active part 
in the affairs of the Society as he would otherwise have done, and at 
last had cut him off in the prime of life. All present expressed 
their sense of the loss the Society had sustained by the removal of 
Mr. Tod. 
The business of the meeting now being concluded, the President 
called upon Mr. Connachie to read the essay of which lie had given 
notice, subject — 
. ABORTION AND PREMATURE BIRTH IN ANIMALS. 
Before proceeding to lay before you some remarks on abortion 
and premature birth in animals, I may state that it is not the sub- 
ject that I had originally intended to bring under your notice. 
But from the fact of the disease having prevailed very extensively in 
certain parts of the district wherein I practise, and from the frequent 
inquiry for advice as to its cause or means of prevention, I have been 
induced to bring the subject before the members of this Association, 
hoping that I may receive information from the discussion that the 
subject may give rise to. 
The subject is not a new one, it seems to have attracted attention 
even in patriarchal times. We read of Jacob telling Laban when 
chiding him for the non-fulfilment of his part of the agreement 
between them, that “all the twenty years that I have been with you 
neither the ewes nor the she-goats have cast their young.” What 
were the preventive measures he used Jacob does not condescend to 
tell us. It must be a subject of regret that they have not been handed 
down to posterity, as no doubt they would have been of great benefit 
to the stock breeder. It would certainly have proved a source of 
satisfaction to the veterinary surgeon to have been able to arrest or 
avert the losses resulting from the evil of which we propose to speak 
in the few following observations. 
I have met with a few cases more or less every year since com- 
mencing practice in Selkirk. But in the years 1869 and 1870 the 
disorder assumed the form of an epidemic prevailing amongst mares, 
cows, and ewes. The loss sustained by some of the leading agri- 
culturists in ewes alone was very heavy ; and though it may, per- 
haps, be considered somewhat out of the range of subjects to be 
brought up for discussion before the members of this Association, 
it is to that my observations will chiefly apply. 
Gentlemen, I think I need offer no apology for bringing this dis- 
ease under your notice, when it is considered that it is by the breed- 
ing and feeding of sheep that many of our farmers have their 
xliii. 43 
