FALSE PRESENTATION IN A HEIFER. 
271 
A friend and employer of mine, a Mr. Harper, residing in the 
neighbourhood, had out at winterage some cattle (not having 
sufficient forage at home to keep them) distant some three or four 
miles off. He occasionally went to visit them. On one of these 
visits he found a fine four-year-old heifer labouring under a state 
which clearly indicated that manual assistance would be now 
necessary ; so he immediately retraced his steps, and called upon 
me for help. On my arriving at the patient’s domicile, on a very 
cursory glance, I quite expected I should have some sharp work to 
do, seeing the head and neck had already protruded, and that to 
their full extent, and had become (either from the parts being 
exposed to the action of the atmosphere or from having been so 
long strangulated, or, perhaps, partly from both causes) quite livid, 
and were emitting a strong cadaverous odour. The head and neck 
being in this situation, and no fore feet appearing as in a natural 
presentation, to make any attempt to search for them in the tumefied 
state of the head and neck was next to impossible ; and to offer to 
return the parts, as suggested by a looker-on, would have been 
worse than useless. So I went to work, and by a circular incision 
made quite round the neck, close behind the ears, divided the skin 
all round, dissected it as far backwards as I could, disarticulated 
the vertebrae, and separated the head and neck from the rest of 
the body. Placing the loose portion of skin over the divided 
end of the bone, I proceeded to push the part back into the uterus. 
My next step was to bring the fore feet and legs into a right posi- 
tion, which was also done without much difficulty. After having thus 
got. the parts into a favourable position, I fixed a crotchet into the 
upper and back part of the neck, placed a cord around each fore leg, 
and confided them to an assistant. By this I thought we had 
gained a powerful advantage, but we were sadly deceived ; for, 
from the emphysematous state of the foetus, delivery by this means 
was entirely hopeless. There was no way that I saw now of accom- 
plishing our purpose but by again having recourse to embyrotomy. 
I therefore proceeded to detach one of the fore legs and shoulder, 
which, by the help of an assistant pulling strongly at the 
parts and an active use of the knife, was accomplished in a short 
time. We now tried again to extract the parts remaining ; but in 
this we were again foiled. For, after having drawn out the re- 
maining fore leg and shoulder, we found an insuperable bar to our 
proceedings from the immense size of the thorax and abdomen. 
My next act was to make an opening into the internal parts of the 
body, and this I did by cutting out a portion of the anterior ribs, &c. 
by which opening the contents of the thorax were evacuated. 
Pushing my hand on through the diaphragm, 1 succeeded in re- 
