CATTLE DURING PREGNANCY. 
511 
assistance, is by the execution of prompt precautionary mea- 
sures, and the employment of remedies selected with a due 
regard to the several causes which, under varying circum- 
stances, we may be induced to attribute as the incentives to the 
affection. 
In all probability, the attention of the breeder will be only 
seriously directed to the adoption of preventive measures on 
the appearance of this disease among his stock ; at such a time, 
then, let me suggest to him the importance, by thorough inves- 
tigation, of ascertaining if there exists any predisposing causes 
connected with the situation of his farm or management of his 
cows; in this his judgment will be guided by a knowledge of 
there having been at any previous time a tendency to such an 
affection. If there has, he may reasonably hope, by changing 
the pasturage of his breeding cattle, or separating his young 
stock from them (this not having been his practice), with other 
precautions presently to be noticed, to succeed in arresting such 
a disposition. 
It has been remarked that when cold winters have been suc- 
ceeded by wet and forward springs, abortion has been espe- 
cially common : this is to be accounted for in several ways: by 
the ill adaption of the digestive organs to sudden extreme 
changes of food, and the prevalence at such times of hoose, the 
distended rumen by its pressure exercising a most prejudicial 
influence on the uterus and its contents; also by the disposition 
such a change of living has to the production of plethora, and 
consequently to increase the general excitement of the system, 
in which state an animal will be more readily influenced by 
external agency ; the condition of the uterus rendering it espe- 
cially susceptible to any of the causes having a tendency to 
produce abortion. 
The character of treatment demanded in such cases will be at 
once suggested. If the nature of the pasturage is evidently of 
too stimulating a quality, removal from it, or its counteraction 
by the occasional withdrawal of blood, and the exhibition of 
aperients : when the cause is attributed to a debilitated state of 
the animal, then, of course, an opposite mode of treatment is 
called for ; such as change of food to that of a more generous 
character, and the frequent administration of medicines having 
tonic and stomachic properties. 
I will now allude to the most common of the exciting causes, 
namely, sympathetic influence ; the existence of such an influ- 
ence is too generally known to every breeder to require to be 
enforced in the present instance ; I will therefore proceed with 
the consideration of the means most likely to prove effectual in 
preventing such a tendency : let me, then, strongly urge the 
