Antiseptic precautions are necessary in order to avoid the development of secondary pyo-metritis. The artificial orifice can afterwards be gradually dilated to allow free exit to the discharges, but in practice, as the animals cannot be used for breeding purposes, they are usually fattened for slaughter.
NYMPHO-MANIA.
The term “nympho-mania” is employed to describe a special condition in female animals which is manifested by continual sexual excitement. The animals are almost always sterile. The disease is most frequent in cows.
Causation. This general condition may depend on one of many causes, but is rarely due to a true neurosis, as was once believed. Some morbid influence of genital origin is always responsible for the appearance of the symptoms.
Nympho-mania, therefore, often co-exists with lesions of the ovaries (simple ovaritis, cystic ovaritis, tumours of the ovary), with lesions of the Fallopian tubes and of the uterus (salpingitis, chronic metritis and tumours of the uterus), with chronic vaginitis and lesions of the clitoris (hypertrophy and tumour formation), and even with peri-vaginal or peri-uterine lesions (cysts or tumours).
In exceptional cases it may be found occurring as a simple nervous disturbance without genital lesion, and it would then appear to be due to some temporary genital affection having produced nervous irritation.
In short, nympho-mania may be considered as almost invariably the result of a genital lesion.
Symptoms. The symptoms are very clearly marked. They consist in persistence of the sexual appetite, which is quite abnormal in female domestic animals. The patients lose flesh, feed badly and irregularly, annoy their fellows, cause accidents, and sometimes become dangerous.
Diagnosis. The diagnosis of nympho-mania is so simple that the condition is generally recognised by the owners or cow-herds. The only difficult point lies in discovering the exact cause. Complete examination of the genital organs per rectum and per vaginam is absolutely necessary to settle this question.
Prognosis. From an economic standpoint the prognosis is generally grave.