568 
M. E. KNOWLES. 
interval of about two months, which he very kindly offered 
me for observation. He gave the date of the last service of 
each, and ten days from these dates I commenced daily 
making two examinations by speculum of each cow. On the 
morning of the twenty-ninth day from date of service in 
number one, I found in her vagina a twenty-nine-day-old foe¬ 
tus., In cow number two, on the morning of the forty-third 
day, the attendant by “ some peculiar circumstance ” found a 
forty-three-day-old foetus behind her, which he presented to 
me on my arrival at the farm. During this and the following 
year it was my fortune to make the same observations on 
twelve brood mares from different farms, with the result of 
positively finding the infinitesimal foetus in the vagina of nine ' 
of the twelve, from twenty-one to sixty-seven days old. 
In the remaining three the foetus escaped me, but the con¬ 
dition of the cervix and intra uterine necrosa pointed plainly 
to the fact of abortion having occurred. 
I will not venture an opinion as to the probable cause of the 
primary abortion, lest it should be due to complete or patchy 
hyperaemia of the emdometrium or cervix —the conditions 
most frequently found existing subsequent to the abortion, 
and in mares not known to have aborted. 
The condition of acute cervical hyperasmia will be easily 
recognized on introducing the vaginal speculum ; the cervix 
and frequently the adjacent vaginal mucous membrane will be 
engorged, vessels distended and the cervical folds thicker 
than in health, glued together by a thick mucous or muco¬ 
purulent discharge, which is rather scant. 
The thickening of cervical folds at this time is evidently 
due to blood infiltration, but should the hyperasmia continue 
for some days the cervical connective tissue becomes infiltrated 
with serum, the folds cedematous, in which condition it re¬ 
mains for some days longer, when the exudation may become 
plastic ; there sometimes seems to be a local lymphangitis, 
and occasionally, when this occurs, from the interference in 
circulation, or possibly blocking of lymph vessels, there 
is occurring local circumscribed necrosis of cervical mucous 
membrane, leaving an ulcer or ulcers that heal tardily. 
