Weaae a eT 
| 
i 
| 
| 
6 
where exploded; but it was formerly very com- 
mon among the breeders of black cattle, and even 
yet is occasionally practised. Many instances 
might be named of the infliction of serious dam- 
age by a great, overgrown bull; and an instance 
| is mentioned by Mr. Wedge of a bull which caused 
a whole dairy of nearly twenty cows to abort in one 
year,—which was sold to a neighbouring farmer, 
and caused all his cows also to abort,—and which, 
on being repurchased by the original owner, and 
again put to the trial, caused another set of cows 
to abort.—A ninth cause is a cow’s being afflicted 
with catarrh, or having a tendency to consump- 
tion. A cow long subject to catarrh rarely be- 
comes pregnant, or, if she does, is very likely to 
cast her calf; and a cow which has become ac- 
tually consumptive is almost certain to miscarry. 
—A tenth cause is acow’s being subject to hoove 
or flatulent distension of the stomach, or her be- 
ing so placed while pregnant as to incur hoove. 
Any considerable distension of the rumen seems 
_ to press so strongly on the foetus as to injure or 
| destroy it; and even an inconsiderable distension, 
| if suddenly produced by change from poor to luxu- 
riant food, often occasions abortion. Cows which 
have been half-starved on meagre herbage during 
winter, and have been incautiously removed to a 
rich pasture in the spring, are in much hazard of 
_ miscarrying. A farmer whose dairy has hitherto 
been free from the mischiefs of abortion, ought, 
on purchasing every new cow, to ascertain her 
previous habit of feeding, lest by too sudden a 
change she incur hoove, and acquire a habit of 
miscarrying.—An eleventh cause is either a cos- 
_ tive or especially a relaxed condition of the bow- 
els. “It must be observed,” says Skellet, “ that, 
though it is necessary to preserve a free state of 
the bowels, a laxity of them will often produce 
abortion. Cows fed very much upon potatoes, 
and such other watery food, are very apt to slink, 
from their laxative effects. In the food of the 
cow, at this time, a proper medium should be 
observed, and it should consist of a due propor- 
tion of other vegetable matter mixed with the 
fodder, so as the bowels may be kept regularly 
open, and no more.” —A twelfth cause is fright. 
Various instances have occurred of whele herds 
of cows having cast their calves in consequence 
of the terror of an extraordinary thunderstorm ; 
and more than one instance may have been seen 
or heard of by almost every farmer, of individual 
cows having been driven to abortion by common 
frights.—A thirteenth cause, and rather frequent 
one, is connexion with the bull after the com- 
mencement of pregnancy.—A fourteenth cause is 
injury from fatigue, from the blows of the cow- 
herd er of other persons, or from the contacts of 
other cows in season or of unskilfully castrated 
oxen.—aA fifteenth cause is similar to one of those 
assigned for the apparently epizootic character 
which abortion occasionally presents,—the preva- 
jence of any bad odour. “Of what nature that 
odour is which gives offence,” says Skellet, “we | 
ABORTION. 
cannot altogether be certain; but the author has 
remarked that its effects occur at one season 
more than at another, and particularly when the 
weather has been wet, and the cows have long 
been kept at grass. From this fact, it will ap- 
pear that the smell is of a vegetable nature, and 
connected with their feeding at that time.”—Yet 
though so many causes of abortion have been 
distinctly ascertained, and may, with more or 
less frequency, be still found in operation, in- | 
stances of abortion occur in the case both of in- 
dividual cows and of whole herds for which no 
apparent cause can be assigned. The Leipsic 
Agricultural Gazette of March 22, 1777, states 
that, “by an unheard-of fatality, the abortion of 
cows in that district was almost general, and | 
that, after the most anxious research, no assign- 
able cause for it could be discovered, nor would 
any medicine or medical treatment arrest the 
plague.” In 1784, according to Chabert, all the 
cows and mares at Chalons, from cause or causes 
quite unknown, aborted; and in 1787, all the 
cows at Bournonville, though they had been in 
the cow-house during the whole winter, and had 
been well taken care of, cast their calves. 
The suitable preventives of abortion, in the 
case of individual cows, are distinctly suggested 
by the causes of the disorder, and need not be 
mentioned in detail. But as some of the causes 
are only occasional, and some can exist only in | 
peculiar localities or under unusual circumstan- | 
ces, and some are liable to come obscurely as | 
well as suddenly into operation, each farmer | 
ought to determine to which of the several causes | 
his particular farm or herd is most likely to be 
obnoxious, and to adopt his principal preventives 
against what he believes to be the most likely 
causes. 
sary, on almost every farm,—such as the regular 
feeding of the cows, the use of only good food 
and in moderate quantities, the affording of free 
access to good water, the cleanliness and perfect 
ventilation of the cow-house, the avoiding of all 
sudden exposure to considerable increase of heat 
or cold, the checking of all tendency to plethora 
or undue fulness of habit, the cautious but steady 
counteraction of any tendency toward emacia- 
tion, the adapting of particular varieties of food 
to the particular tastes of the several animals, 
the gentle correction of any tendency toward 
either constipation or relaxation of the bowels, 
the prohibition of all rough usage on the part of 
the cow-herd, and the various little arts of con- 
sideration and kindness which are suggested to 
good feeling and sound judgment by a knowledge 
of the cow’s delicate organisms and comparatively 
tender susceptibilities. Only a brutal-minded 
cow-owner will pronounce such attentions too 
refined for a mere animal; only a lazy and slug- 
gardly one will think them too troublesome for 
his observance; and only one of narrow know- 
ledge, ill-trained principles, and wasteful econo- 
Yet a few precautions or modes of pro- | 
tective treatment are desirable, and even neces- | 
