MIDLAND COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 779 
to bring: about contraction of the organ and expulsion of its 
contents? Many, I am aware, entirely repudiate the idea of 
abortion even being due to this cause, but there are instances 
recorded which seem to afford very conclusive evidence that the 
theory is not altogether a fallacious one. In one of the volumes 
of the Veterinarian a case is mentioned, by Mr. Field, of abortion 
occurring in a mare which was near enough to observe the sufferings 
of another at the time of foaling. 
You are, doubtless,aware that efforts are sometimes made to procure 
abortion in the lower animals, more particularly mares, by grooms 
and waggoners ; and various medicinal agents are employed for the 
purpose, some of which (though it appears with no great degree of 
certainty) have the effect o ' either causing the death of the foetus 
or stimulating the uterus to action, in either case inducing the ex¬ 
pulsion of the foetus. Amongst these agents may be mentioned 
savine, hellebore, ergot of rye, &c. I will only allude to the latter. 
Ergot or spurred rye is occasionally used by the veterinary surgeon, 
but more frequenly by the human practitioner, in cases of pro¬ 
tracted parturition, where from exhaustion the natural contractions 
of the womb have ceased or become much weakened, for the purpose 
of assisting delivery or the expulsion of the placental membranes. 
Its action is specially determined to the uterus, to which it acts as 
a powerful stimulant. Ergot is a diseased condition of the grain, 
and is very frequently found affecting the seeds of many of the 
grasses growing upon our pastures ; and, reasoning from analogy, 
many are of opinion that the frequent occurrence of abortion in 
cows is due to the action of this agent, w^hich may be taken from 
the pasture in summer, or with the dried food in the winter, so that 
the time of year of the abortion occurring could not justly be 
advanced as an argument against its sometimes being the cause. 
Some seasons are, doubtless, more favorable for the development 
of ergot than others, and it would be very satisfactory to know 
whether in such seasons abortion is of more frequent occurrence. 
Unwholesome water, such as that in the neighbourhood of mines, 
if it be impregnated with some deleterious mineral substance, may 
in some special instances be the cause. 
Abortion has also by many been attributed to a weakly condition 
of the foetus, owing to the existence of disease in the male animal 
at the time of copulation, or to the same cause depending upon 
breeding from animals in which too close an affinity of blood 
exists. 
I humby submit, Gentlemen, that these constitute the probable 
causes of abortion in cows ; that it always depends upon one or 
other of them I am not vain enough to believe, and when occurring 
in each particular instance the cause in operation can only be de¬ 
termined by a strict investigation of the circumstances connected 
with it; and so far as my own experience has gone it will often be 
found a difficult matter to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. 
With regard to abortion in ewes I have little to add to the general 
remarks I have already made on the predisposing and accidental 
