PRACTICAL PAPERS—ABORTION IN COWS. 
261 
year, indicate that this fatty degeneration had progressed suf¬ 
ficiently, to warrant the belief that the foetus had been dead 
some days. 
To what source, then, must we look for the causes to pro¬ 
duce the death of the foetus-in-utero, after excluding those 
already referred to ? It plainly can not be external violence 
in all the cases over so wide an extent of country. 
Is it mal-nutrition? the blood of the dam or sire being im¬ 
pure : The evidence is all to the contrary ; the cows are well 
nourished, so far as can be judged from external appearances 
by persons accustomed to this method of examination, and 
those skilled in pathological investigation agree that there are 
no pre-existing abnormal appearances in the internal organs. 
The bulls are healthy, with the exceptions of a few instances 
in which the trouble is entirely local; and as has already been 
said, the descriptions received from farmers uniformly state 
that there is no appearance of disease in the external aspect of 
the foetus. 
If, then, there is no fault in the quality of the nutritive ma¬ 
terials furnished to the foetus, does it receive a sufficient sup¬ 
ply during the whole period of utero-gestation ? 
It has already been pointed out that the average yield of 
milk in all the cows in the state is 2,571 pounds per cow? 
while the average yield ot cows on the non-affected farms ex¬ 
amined in Ilerkimer county this year, is 4,386 pounds per 
cow, an excess of 70 per cent, more milk than the average 
natural yield of cows, subjected to the same circumstances in 
other respects, than those herein referred to. That this 
excess is supplied at the expense of the foetus is respectfully 
submitted; but in order to show how, the more important par¬ 
ticulars of the reproductive process should be fully understood, 
and a brief description is therefore introduced. 
The essential features in the generative function are, in all 
cases, the formation of a germ^ which living for a certain period 
at the expense of the parent^ is afterwards detached therefrom and 
takes on a separate existence. The forms under which this 
series of phenomena occur, are as various as there are species 
