80 
CASE OF RUPTURE OF THE UTERUS IN A COW. 
examinations, I have sent it to you, if you think it worth your 
notice. It may offer a useful hint with respect to a cautious 
and guarded prognosis in any doubtful case:— 
A gentleman near Stanmore, in the beginning of last summer, 
purchased a cow, forward in calf, from a drove. She w T as kept 
with other cows, and continued doing well till the time arrived 
when they expected she would calve. The udder filled suddenly, 
and, no other symptom of approaching parturition coming on, 
after a day or two I w r as requested to see her, as it was thought 
she had gone beyond her time: I accordingly went over, and 
found her with a smooth and healthy skin; legs warm; and no 
expression of pain or uneasiness, except that she moaned rather 
heavily occasionally. There was very little preparatory alteration 
in the pelvis; the udder was distended ; she ate and drank spa¬ 
ringly; the abdomen was full, but not more so than would be 
looked for in a cow down-calving, and she passed no faeces. Con¬ 
sidering these symptoms to proceed from some disordered state 
of the intestines, I gave her an aperient draught, w r ith orders for 
gruel, mashes, and green food. 
On the next morning a message was sent over that she was 
no better, and had now got the redwater, and that they had se¬ 
veral times observed bloody urine pass away. I thought there was 
nothing very extraordinary in that, as it frequently happened with . 
constipation, and I promised to see her: and on visiting her a 
few hours after, found her dow r n on the left side, in a narrow 
stall, and moaning a great deal. The abdomen was as full and 
tense as it could possibly be; nothing had passed the bowels. 
The attendant was sure she had the redwater; but, on close 
inquiry, I found that the water did not come in a regular stream, 
but in a kind of gush. The bowels were still considered to be 
the seat of the disorder, and more aperient medicine was given. 
In the evening she died, and a message was sent to me that there 
was no occasion to come over again; and, as is generally the 
case, the animal was sent away almost immediately. Had it not 
been for the person who fetched her away, I should not have 
known what was the real state of the case ; but he (as is common 
when decomposition takes place), in order to save the flesh, 
emptied the abdomen. In doing this, he observed something 
unusual protruding; on opening still farther, he found it to be 
the calf, which had escaped through a rent in the uterus. Its 
skin was so puffed up and distended with air, that it occupied 
full three times the space of a living calf; compressing the 
intestines into so small a space, that their natural action was 
wholly suspended. The constipation, and the gush of bloody 
serum (mistaken for urine), were now sufficiently accounted for ; 
