ei. BBCI cM RN LEA Sas 
ABORTION. 
to be wholly avoided or very cautiously observed ; 
for they have not been known, in even one in- 
stance, to produce a decidedly good effect, and 
they, in all cases, incur a hazard of creating the 
very evil which they are intended to avert. The 
transmission of the abortive habit in the seem- 
ingly epizootic form, is confessedly an obscure 
subject,—possibly yet untraced to its real cause, 
—and certainly ill combated by any remedies 
yet devised; and hence every intelligent farmer 
will deal with it according to the best of his own 
judgment, and keep his mind open to any ex- 
planations of it which accident or observation 
may disclose. 
The causes of the abortion of the cow, in its 
more common forms of occurrence, are better 
known.—One of these causes is overfeeding. Cows, 
when in an extravagantly high condition, are in 
continual excitement, and constantly lable to 
inflammation of the uterus, and consequent abor- 
tion. M. Cruzel narrates that three cows out of 
ten, belonging to a certain farmer who consulted 
him, aborted in the first year of their breeding, 
—that two of these three aborted also in the 
second year, whilst the third produced a feeble 
calf which died on the second day,—that a fourth 
of the ten cows aborted in the third year,—that, 
on‘then being called in to examine and prescribe, 
he observed all the cows to be in an unnecessarily 
high condition, and drew blood from them all, 
and ordered a material reduction in the quan- 
tity of their food,—and that, as the result of his 
treatment, their habit of abortion was completely 
removed.—Another cause is the feeding of cows 
with bad hay. Mr. Lindsay states that no fewer 
than ten out of twenty-two cows of a respectable 
friend of his who kept a dairy aborted in one 
year,—that other animals of his friend’s stock, 
contracted diseases, some fatal and most of them 
disastrous, about the same period,—and that both 
the abortions and the other diseases were clearly 
traceable to the unavoidable feeding of the cattle 
with very badly saved or very badly preserved 
hay.—A third cause is the autumn grazing of the 
cow upon fields thickly covered with hoar-frost. 
In Switzerland, abortion, though occurring at 
all seasons of the year, sets in with virulence and 
becomes multiplied tenfold, at the period when 
hoar-frost begins to appear on the fields. This 
cause of abortion, however, may be resolved into. 
the more general one of feeding cows on any pas- 
ture which has a tendency to produce inflamma- 
tory disorders. Cattle of all kinds are exposed 
to serious injury, and sometimes incur palsy of 
the rumen or dangerous inflammation of the 
bowels, from feeding in autumn upon fields coy- 
ered with hoar-frost; and whatever has a ten- 
dency to create general excitation in the bestial 
system, is likely, during the pregnancy of the 
cow, to produce inflammation of the womb.—A 
fourth cause is grazing upon pastures containing 
acrid plants, or upon the coarse, rank herbage of 
low, marshy, and woody grounds. This cause 
operates with great force also in producing the 
disease called Red- Water: see article Rep- 
Watrer.—A fifth cause is the drinking of stag- 
nant or putrescent water, Mr. White mentions 
that three successive tenants of a farm near 
Berkeley. in Gloucestershire relinquished posses- 
sion in consequence of serious losses in cattle by 
abortion, red-water, and other diseases,—that a 
fourth tenant suffered similar losses during five 
years, but eventually observed his cattle-pond to 
consist of stagnant water, impregnated with dung 
and urine, and suspected this to be the source of 
his cattle’s disorders,—and that he shut up the 
pond, procured a supply of good spring water by 
digging or boring, and was rewarded both by the 
disappearance of all disease from among his cows, 
and by a great improvement in the quality of the 
butter and cheese manufactured from their milk. 
—A sixth cause is the drinking of water impreg- 
nated with iron. A writer ina German periodical 
states that, in 1822, twelve of his pregnant heifers, 
which drank from ponds of water strongly impreg- 
nated with iron, cast their calves,—that, in 1823, 
twelve other pregnant heifers drank from the 
/same ponds, and likewise cast their calves,—and 
that, in 1824, ten cows which drank other water 
safely calved, while one cow which drank of the 
ferruginous water aborted—A seventh cause is 
feeding with hard, unsucculent food, or occasion- 
ing cows to drink large quantities of water. Mr. 
White states that, in January 1782, all the cows 
of a farmer near Grandvilhers in Picardy mis- 
carried,—that they had been kept upon the straw 
of oats, wheat, and rye, and had been obliged to 
drink large quantities of bad water in order to 
obtain sufficient nourishment from the straw,— 
and that the causes of their miscarrying appeared 
to be the distension produced by the large quan- 
tities of water which they drank, and the injury 
sustained by the third stomach in expressing the 
fluid parts of the masticated mass. Mr. White 
also states that, in one year, sixteen out of twen- 
ty-eight cows in a dairy at Charentin miscarried, 
—that, during the preceding season, which had 
beer unusually dry, the cows had been pastured 
in a muddy place, flooded by the Seine, and had 
generally stood up to the knees in mud and water, 
feeding on crowfoot, rushes, and other similar 
vegetation,—and that some of them had, not long 
before, been brought from Lower Normandy, where 
they had suffered indigestion from feeding on | 
lucerne, and had obtained relief by the operation 
of paunching. Mr. White likewise mentions that, 
in 1789, all the cows in the parish of Beaulieu, 
near Mantes, miscarried ; and states that all the 
land of that parish is very retentive of water, 
and that so much rain fell wpon it in 1789 as re- 
peatedly, and for long perieds, to flood all the 
pastures, so that the grass became rank and sour, | 
—An eighth cause is the too great’ weight, or 
some other unsuitable property, of the bull.. The 
use of a too heavy male among the breeders of 
sheep, is an error well understood, and every- 
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