114 
J. GERTH, JR. 
table organism. That an apparantly infectious element may be 
developed by a cow which has aborted is a sufficiently important 
fact to demand further attention. If one examines other cases of 
abortion closer, the suspicion at once forces itself upon us, that 
abortion generally is produced through putrified or septic matters. 
Several cases are known to me where cows aborted, that were 
standing by the side of a cow whose secundine had become de¬ 
composed. 
The case of Johne’s endorses the above, for in his case also, 
abortion extended from a cow which had remained sick for some 
time after the abortion. In two other cases, two cows, which were 
examined for pregnancy per vaginum aborted, after each had 
been released from a decomposing secundine on the forenoon of 
the same day. Certainly in the latter case, the objection could 
easily be made, that this examination caused the abortion. This 
may be the case, but still I must explicitly mention, that I have 
examined cows in great numbers for pregnancy per vaginum and 
never found abortion to set in, with the exception of the two above 
stated cases. The following cases also seem to endorse the above 
views, by which a large number of cases of abortion appear in 
flocks of sheep, caused by retention of the after-birth or by being 
accompanied by septic inflammation. While these views are in a 
high degree speculative, yet it must however be confessed, that 
they have a strong character of probability. We must yet make 
closer observations and special experiments in order to clear this 
matter up. 
We now come to the question, How did the infectious matter 
gain entrance to the pregnant animal ? There can only be two 
direct ways: 
(a.) The direct entrance through the vagina, and 
(b.) The entrance through the air passages. 
The reception through the alimentary canal is very improb¬ 
able. On the one hand the processes of digestion would most pro¬ 
bably destroy the infectious matter, on the other hand the epithe 
lium of the intestinal canal is less favorable to reception of the 
infectious matter. 
