REPORTS OF CASES. 
539 
in streaks, caecum packed full and hard—so hard that the con¬ 
tents could be rolled about after being removed. Qecum was 
also ruptured near the ilio-caecal valve. 
PROLONGED PARTURITION. 
By W. S. Stinson, Crystal, North Dakota. 
On June 6th, 1901, a Mr. Carr called at my office and asked 
me to give him some medicine for a mare that was bleeding 
from the vagina. After questioning him, I told him I was un¬ 
able to prescribe without seeing the patient. On arriving at 
his stable, I found the mare feeding and expelling a small 
amount of a chocolate-colored fluid from the vulva at short in¬ 
tervals. I asked if she had been working and was informed 
that she had been until that day, when it was raining so that 
it was not a fit day to work. Owner said that mare had lost 
her foal one week previously, being turned to pasture at night 
and brought into stable in morning and fed grain before going 
to work. . He said the night she lost her foal he' found her in 
the morning by herself and noticed the ground pawed in several 
places and thought she had an attack of colic during the night. 
On being brought to the stable Mr. Carr’s father said she had 
foaled and to turn her out to pasture, which was done. She ran 
directly to one of those places where the ground was pawed, 
stood there and neighed. That was more convincing that she 
had lost her foal in the timber. Search was made for the foal 
without finding any trace of it ; they felt satisfied, however, 
that the foal was eaten by hogs or wolves. The mare was taken 
in and put to work ; she ate, drank and worked for a week 
without showing any signs of sickness. I then made an examin¬ 
ation and found the colt still in the uterus; the os was fully 
dialated, and a hock presentation. I removed foal, which was 
so badly distended with gas and so decomposed that when the 
hips were outside of the vulva the abdomen burst and let the in¬ 
testines run out on the floor. The colt was fully developed to all 
appearances, and had come to proper time to foal. 
The reason I report this case is that the mare had been try¬ 
ing to foal in the pasture, then all labor pains ceased ; she fed 
and worked as usual up to the date that I relieved her of her 
foal. I have always been of the opinion that when a mare com¬ 
menced to foal the labor pains would continue until the foal 
was delivered or death ended the mother, and those that I have 
had an opportunity to talk with were of the same opinion. 
While this is a peculiar case to me, it may not be to others, and 
