624 
RUPTURED UTERUS IN A PARTURIENT COW. 
By W. Cox, M.R.C.V.S., Ashbourn, Derbyshire. 
I HAVE looked over the indices to all the volumes of The VE- 
TERINARIAN, and I find but one case, which is in the seventh vol. 
of The Veterinarian, by Mr. King, V.S., Stanmore, at all 
analogous to the one I am about to describe. 
On the 20th of September last, Mr. Swindel, of the Crakelow 
farm, near Tissington, sent for me to a cow, which I found had 
been ill four days. 
The character of the pulse was such that told me speedy disso- 
lution was at hand : a peculiar heavy groaning, particularly when 
down — a tympanitic state of the rumen, abdomen, &c. — the feces 
were liquid, black and offensive, and voided with tenesmus— cold 
mouth, with rigors — mucous membranes pallid urine healthy 
respiration but little increased. 
The post-mortem account is from Mr. Swindel and the butcher 
who opened her. . 
On opening the abdomen, the calf was found among the intes- 
tines. The walls of the uterus having given way, the foetus had 
escaped from its natural cavity, thereby producing inflammation of 
the peritoneum and intestines, and, as the consequence, death. 
In Mr. King’s case, to which your readers may refer, that gentle- 
man appears to think that the rent in the uterus took place from 
the foetus being swelled and puffed up, &c., which was not the fact 
with the one above described. She was within five weeks of her 
time of calving. The foetus was healthy, and to all appearance 
continued alive up to the time of the accident. W^hat could be 
the cause of this extensive lesion 1 She was free from any external 
marks of violence, and the history of the case gave us no clue as 
to the cause. 
I recollect a similar accident occurring in a mare, some years 
ago: she had been using extra exertion in drawing a load of timber, 
and was within about a month of foaling ; when she died, in the 
course of twelve hours, from internal hemorrhage. 
