778 MIDLAND COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
being over-burdened with a bulky material which contains but little 
nutriment, and contributes little to the support of the animal frame ; 
debility ensues, the blood becoming poor, and infiltrated for the 
nourishment of the foetus, a weakened condition of its membranes 
results, its vitality is lost, and separation takes place, followed by 
its expulsion, the bulk of the food in the stomach materially 
assisting in the production of the death of the foetus by the pressure 
it exerts upon the uterus. 
Mr. Flower, V.S., of Derby, has informed me that having had 
considerable experience in these cases, he is of opinion that this is 
the most fruitful source of abortion in cows, and believes that he has 
in many instances checked it by advising a change to food of a 
more nutritious character. On the other hand, abortion is doubt¬ 
less sometimes induced by feeding upon food of a too nutritous 
and stimulating kind, whereby a state of plethora is brought about, 
and as the uterus during the period of pregnancy is more liable to 
congestion and inflammation than at other times, it follows that if 
an undue quantity of blood is formed, these states may probably 
result, the organ would be excited to action, and its contents ex¬ 
pelled ; in this case, especially if the abortion occurred at an 
advanced period of pregnancy, there may be very great danger 
attending it. I think abortions from this cause are of far less 
frequent occurrence than those due to the opposite condition, 
debility. 
Next, there is the mysterious agency of the atmosphere, which 
w^e know plays a most important part in the causation of disease, 
certain changes from the usual course of the seasons, prolonged 
drought, protracted rains, being favorable to the production of 
various maladies; but it would be beyond the limits of a paper 
such as this, to attempt to go into the different theories bearing 
upon the propagation of epidemic and epizootic diseases ; it is suffi¬ 
cient that I should say that I have little doubt but that abortion, 
more frequently than is supposed, depends upon the existence in 
the atmosphere of a peculiar principle which may specially predis¬ 
pose to it by inducing some of those conditional states of the 
uterus which I have before mentioned as being favorable to its 
occurrence. 
There is a general opinion (and this is the most popular one) 
that when one abortion occurs in a herd, from any accidental or 
other cause, it is likely to be propagated afterwards through the 
medium of contagion and infection, and the spread of it is believed 
by many to be due at all times to these circumstances. I am not 
disposed to accept the terms contagion and infection as correctly 
applying here, but it is certain that the cow is an animal of an 
irritable and possibly an imaginative disposition, which is more 
especially manifested during the in-calf period. Is it not, therefore, 
likely that at this time she may be capable of receiving impressions 
and exhibiting a feeling of sympathy—if that term can be correctly 
applied to the lower animals—when near a companion in distress, 
so that the nerves of the uterus may be excited in a degree sufficient 
