260 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
As a fatty degeneration is the natural change occuring in the 
placenta, after the cessation of the circulation, the inference 
is plain that circulation had stopped before the abortion took 
place ; for the changes noted could not have occurred in the 
twenty-four hours between the abortion and the time the au¬ 
topsy was made, but they had probably been going on for some 
days previously. 
If the fact be established, that the uterus and its append¬ 
ages, and the foetus and its products, are both healthy, the 
natural changes incident to a stoppage of circulation being all 
that occurs, an important point is arrived at. And aside from 
the absence of any traces of pre-existing disease, to be 
detected by the microscope, symptoms are wanting on the 
part of the cow to point to anything other than an approach¬ 
ing labor, the evidences of which are, perhaps, unusually 
marked. 
The introduction of a deleterious substance into the food, to 
effect so large a number of cows, with such uniformity of 
action, over a large extent of country, besides being in the 
first place improbable, in the second place has been investi¬ 
gated sufficiently to show that no article, or even variety of 
articles, occur having properties that would produce these 
extensive effects. 
The existence of microscopic vegetations, or animalculae, in 
the tissues of the cow, has been disproved by the microscop¬ 
ical examination by Dr. Dalton of almost every solid organ, 
and of all of the important fluids. 
It is very difficult, and in this investigation unnecessary, to 
draw an absolute line between forces operating upon bodies so 
intimately applied, as the foetus and its dam; or to say that in 
one case the foetus is primarily affected, and in the other it is 
the dam. In either case, after the death of the foetus occurred 
the changes referred to in the microscopical examination 
would follow, and by the amount of fatty degeneration, an 
estimate may be formed as to whether the foetus has been 
dead for some time or not. 
The microscopical examinations in cases examined in each 
