CASTKATION OF THE COW. 
447 
early morning. Each day they were driven about a third of a 
mile to water, and after keeping them there a few hours were re¬ 
turned to pasture. Only one of this 31 head of cows died. She 
was one of the two which were heavy with calf. The foetal mem¬ 
branes protruded from the vulva on the day after the operation, 
but the cow seemed to be in no very great distress. On the morning 
of the second day, I found a live calf at her side, which, judging 
from its developement, had been carried a little over seven months. 
The cow that day was suffering considerably, and we were unable 
to take her again to water. She was found dead on the fourth 
day succeeding the operation, and was immediately opened. 
The post-mortem showed very violent inflammation to have oc¬ 
curred throughout the peritoneal membrane, the most dependent 
portion of which was gangrenous and much thickened by false 
membranous attachments. The peritoneal cavity contained about 
five buckets of watery serous effusion without signs of blood. 
The uterus was highly inflamed and still contained most of the 
placenta, a small part of which protruded from the vulva. The 
points of the broad ligament from which the ovaries were detached 
were included in the general inflammation affecting the peritoneal 
membrane, but were not gangrenous, and the wound in the vagi¬ 
nal wall had cicatrized. The stomachs and intestines were filled 
with feed, and the rectum was full of hard nodulated foeces. 
The chest contained no serum, and the organs there were appar¬ 
ently healthy. The remaining thirty cows were held twelve days 
and then liberated. None of them, as far as I could discover, had 
aborted. However, as the grass was very long in many parts of 
the meadow, abortion might have occurred and passed unnoticed. 
The symptoms following the operation I will describe later. 
Encouraged by the results obtained from the operations on 
this small number, the parties for whom I was making these ex¬ 
periments desired now that I should operate on a large number. 
I cautioned them that the operation must be done in warm wea¬ 
ther, and to have the animals ready for me before the cold weather 
set in. This they neglected to do, not having them ready for 
operation before Sept. 6th. 
On that date I operated on 24 head of cows. The weather 
was cloudy and cold, the thermometer ranging about 55° F. 
