606 
ON VETERINARY OBSTETRICY. 
the various animals, and yet, I fear, many are miserably ignorant 
of this department ; indeed, I do not see how it could have been 
otherwise, especially when we take into consideration how this 
branch has been neglected ; for during the time I was at the Col- 
lege in London I never heard a single lecture on the subject, and 
I suppose it was never touched upon in other years : but upon this 
dark side I will not dwell, as a brighter day has dawned upon 
the Veterinary College, and there is now one filling the chair on 
cattle pathology, fully competent to teach and illustrate, from 
practical experience, this branch of our profession. 
There are dispersed throughout the country many very useful 
and practical persons, who, for years, have been known to be well 
skilled in veterinary obstetricy ; yet these very persons, for want 
of being grounded in the principles of anatomy, physiology, and 
pathology, I have known commit most egregious mistakes, and use 
most unjustifiable force. 
I recollect, some few years ago, a farmer who lived a few miles 
from this place, and who was considered pretty clever in assisting 
cows to calve, being sent for, to a gentleman’s bouse, to a valuable 
Welsh in-calf cow that was supposed to have gone the full period 
of her utero gestation, in consequence of her being uneasy and 
straining. He made an examination, and declared that the mouth 
of the womb was so closed up, hard, and rigid, that she never 
would be able to calve, and that the best thing would be to have 
her killed for meat ; consequently, a butcher (my next-door neigh- 
bour) was sent for, who, after some persuasion, advised the owner 
not to kill her, but that he would give a fair price for her, and 
give her a trial a little longer, which was agreed to, and he 
brought her home, and immediately sent for me to examine her. 
I found her looking uncommonly well and lively, and on turning 
her into the field she ate greedily. Her udder was beginning to 
fill, but she was not at all “ off at the hips and on introducing 
my hand up the vagina, T found that the os uteri was not at all 
dilated, but in a perfectly healthy and natural state. As she did 
not strain much, and there appeared but little the matter with her, 
and evidently not being at her full time, I advised him to leave 
her alone. In the course of the day the straining ceased, and in 
about a week after she calved a fine healthy calf without assist- 
ance, and in a few days after she was sold for £14. 
Another farrier, who lives in this town, was sent for to assist a 
cow to calve. It was a breech presentation, and he was unable to 
raise the hind legs into the passage, so as to extract it ; and as it 
is a rule with such persons that the calf “ must be got away,” let 
the consequences be what they may, a strong rope was passed 
around the loins, and by using tremendous force a full grown calf 
