692 
ON ABORTION IN CATTLE. 
time. Cats very rarely abort. They may be seen, when near the 
period of parturition, falling from a height of twenty or thirty feet 
without abortion, although some of their limbs have been broken in 
the tumble. Birds are not exposed to abortion, except we regard 
as abortions those eggs which are laid without the female having 
connexion with the male. 
That which renders abortion most to be dreaded is the little know¬ 
ledge we have of its true source, and the difficulty of preventing its 
return; therefore it belongs to the number of evils of the real na¬ 
ture of which we can form little or no conception, and which the vul¬ 
gar attribute to sorcery. The causes of it, in fact, are yet to be 
investigated, and must be studied with the closest attention. 
Whatever may be its actual cause, it depends, in a certain de¬ 
gree, on the constitution, the age, the weakness, and the maladies 
of the mother;—the state of the uterus, the diseases, and the faults 
of conformation of the foetus and the uterine membranes;—the 
being placed in localities exposed to an atmosphere vitiated by 
marshy emanations, or in situations, low, humid, and deprived of 
the proper solar influence. 
It is to this list of evils that abortion is to be attributed, consi¬ 
dered by some persons as enzootics and epizootics, because they 
know not the true causes, but search vaguely for them in the heats 
and long droughts, and the cold and abundant rains which succeed 
to them—the inundations which spoil the hay and the grass—and 
the vapours which ascend from the humid ground, &c. &c. 
We have always found it difficult to believe in the reality of 
these abortions as dependent on any enzootic or epizootic influence, 
and which is still more difficult to be admitted, if we take these 
words in their true and proper acceptation. All the cows and all 
the sheep of a farm may abort because they have been exposed to 
the common influence of the same causes; but it is only necessary 
to remove these causes in order to destroy the effects; and, if the 
farmers will take this precaution with regard to all their cattle, and 
that for the period of a twelvemonth, they will escape from this de¬ 
structive agency. 
There is one series of causes which may be said to have a general 
influence,-—namely, those that have relation to insufficient food. The 
foetus suffers from the manner of feeding the mother. If she receives 
not sufficient food, it dies. Some unwholesome alimentary sub¬ 
stances produce a general atony, which reacts upon the uterus as 
upon other organs, and prevents the growth and even the exist¬ 
ence of the foetus. Abortion is more rare under the influence of a 
too nutritious or too abundant food, and is produced by the general 
plethora in which the uterus participates. 
Beside these remote causes, there are others which are occa- 
