V ETE 11INARY O BSTETRICY. 
487 
There are several cases on record, however, and which I shall 
hereafter refer to, that clearly disprove such an assertion, and 
which ought to lead us never to despair while we are trying to 
effect a cure in such desperate and difficult cases. In all of them 
the life of our patients is in imminent danger; and even if she reco- 
vers, if the bladder is not re-inverted, she is generally a loathsome 
and disgusting object to all around her, as well as a burden to her- 
self. 
Cause . — Most of those cases ocqur during the act of parturition, 
and at a time when the animal is violently straining, whereby a 
part of the contents of the abdomen and uterus are forced against 
the bladder, and so in the end cause its inversion. It is not at all 
improbable but that the bladder may, in consequence of the pres- 
sure it occasionally receives, be in a spasmodic state, or the cervix 
may be dilated and relaxed at times. Now and then a rupture 
takes place in the vagina, as in the subjoined instance [see Youatt 
on Cattle, page 522]. 
“ The following case, which happened to a skilful practitioner, 
may be, perhaps, a warning to others. A cow had been three days 
in labour, and little advance had been made. She was lying on’ 
her right side, exhausted, every now and then lowing mournfully, 
and making violent efforts to expel the foetus. A round, fibrous, 
white tumour presented itself; it was evidently distended with 
some fluid, fluctuation being detectible on the slightest touch. Not 
dreaming that it could be any thing beside the membranous bag 
that contained the natural uterine fluid, he punctured it, and he 
was astonished when that which ran out had the colour and smell 
of urine. It was the bladder which had protruded through a rent 
in the vagina, and which he might have recognised by its smaller 
bulk and firmer texture, and by the ease with which the neck 
would have been discovered on a slight examination. The calf 
was saved — the mother might probably have been saved, too — the 
internal laceration might have been healed — and the practitioner 
would have escaped the consciousness of having made a somewhat 
disgraceful blunder.” 
In the cow and mare the urethra is short, straight, and capa- 
cious, sufficiently so to allow, under certain circumstances, of the 
inversion of the bladder. 
Symptoms . — Protruding either through the vulval opening, or 
immediately within the labia, will be discovered a tumour of a 
pyriform shape, varying at different periods, according to the length 
of time the accident has happened, both in size and colour : some- 
times it will be seen hanging down from within the vagina by a 
sort of peduncle, for at least eight or nine inches, and will contain 
two or three pints of serum, no doubt secreted by the peritoneum, 
