430 GENERATIVE ORGANS OF CATTLE. 
should have deviated from your usual custom, as Editor of The 
Veterinarian, so far as to insert so personal an article, and 
particularly from an anonymous writer, without first taking the 
trouble to ascertain the truth. 
I remain, Sir, 
Your obedient servant, 
W. T. Stanley, M.R.C.V.S. 
Leamington Veterinary Infirmary, Regent Grove, 
June 12th, 1851. 
P.S. — Mr. Prichard’s reply to the Surgeon did, in my opinion, 
quite vindicate veterinary surgeons from the Surgeon’s aspersions. 
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PATHOLOGY OF THE 
GENERATIVE ORGANS OF CATTLE. 
By John Relph, V.S., Sebergham. 
Some years ago I ventured to lay before the profession, 
through the medium of The VETERINARIAN, two cases of 
uterine dropsy in cattle ; and, subsequently, Mr. Cartwright 
favoured us with two valuable papers on the same subject. 
From extended observations I have imbibed some notions con- 
nected therewith, which, perhaps, may be found worthy of 
record. 
When disease is not associated with gestation, it is generally 
the result of mechanical injury sustained in copulation. Of 
course, when the injury is received beyond the os uteri, the 
uterus is mostly the seat of disease ; but in many instances the 
posterior parts are those that suffer. Inflammation is set up in 
the mucous membrane ; adhesion of the parietes of the passage 
takes place : a sac is thus formed, into which muco-purulent fluid 
is poured, and a vaginal abscess is the result. Hence it follows 
that a similar collection in the uterus may, with more propriety, 
be called an uterine abscess than uterine dropsy, as in my former 
paper. 
I am fully aware that the effect of the injury is not invariably 
an abscess. The walls of the vagina may be perforated, and 
peritonitis produced ; even the rectum may be lacerated. A 
distressing case of this kind occurred in my practice last summer. 
The subject was a good middle-aged husbandry mare. The 
parts were so dreadfully torn, that no hopes of restoration could 
be entertained. Although the faeces lay in the pelvis until 
