ABORTION IN COWS.

Cows are particularly liable to the accident of "slinking the calf." The common causes of abortion are, the respiration and ultimate absorption of emanations from putrid animal remains, over-feeding, derangement of the stomach, &c. The filthy, stagnant water they are often compelled to drink is likewise a serious cause, not only of abortion, but also of general derangement of the animal functions. Dr. White, V. S., tells us that "a farm in England had been given up three successive times in consequence of the loss the owners sustained by abortion in their cattle. At length the fourth proprietor, after suffering considerably in losses occasioned by abortion in his stock, suspected that the water of his ponds, which was extremely filthy, might be the cause of the mischief. He therefore dug three wells upon his farm, and, having fenced round the pond to prevent the cattle from drinking there, caused them to be supplied with the well water, in stone troughs erected for the purpose; and from this moment the evil was remedied, and the quality of the butter and cheese made on his farm was greatly improved. In order to show," says the same author, "that the accident of abortion may arise from a vitiated state of the digestive organs, I will here notice a few circumstances tending to corroborate this opinion. In 1782, all the cows of the farmer D'Euruse, in Picardy, miscarried. The period at which they warped was about the fourth or fifth month. The accident was attributed to the excessive heat of the preceding summer; but, as the water they were in the habit of drinking was extremely bad, and they had been kept on oat, wheat, and rye straw, it appears to me more probable, that the great quantity of straw they were obliged to eat, in order to obtain sufficient nourishment, and the injury sustained by the third stomach in expressing the fluid parts of the masticated or ruminated mass, together with the large quantity of water they drank, while kept on this dry food, were the real causes of the miscarriage.

"A farmer at Chariton, out of a dairy of twenty-eight cows, had sixteen slip their calves at different periods of gestation. The summer had been very dry; they had been pastured in a muddy place, which was flooded by the Seine. Here the cows were generally up to their knees in mud and water. In 1789, all the cows in a village near Mantes miscarried. All the lands in this place were so stiff as to be, for some time, impervious to water; and as a vast quantity of rain fell that year, the pastures were for a time completely inundated, on which account the grass became bad. This proves that keeping cows on food that is deficient in nutritive properties, and difficult of digestion, is one of the principal causes of miscarriage." Mr. Youatt says, "It is supposed that the sight of a slipped calf, or the smell of putrid animal substances, are apt to produce warping. Some curious cases of abortion, which are worthy of notice, happened in the dairy of a French farmer. For thirty years his cows had been subject to abortion. His cow-house was large and well ventilated; his cows were in apparent health; they were fed like others in the village; they drank the same water; there was nothing different in the posture; he had changed his servants many times in the course of thirty years; he pulled down the barn and cow-house, and built another, on a different plan; he even, agreeably to superstition, took away the aborted calf through the window, that the curse of future abortion might not be entailed on the cow that passed over the same threshold. To make all sure, he had broken through the wall at the end of the cow-house, and opened a new door. But still the trouble continued. Several of his cows had died in the act of abortion, and he had replaced them by others; many had been sold, and their vacancies filled up. He was advised to make a thorough change. This had never occurred to him; but at once he saw the propriety of the counsel. He sold every beast, and the pest was stayed, and never appeared in his new stock. This was owing, probably, to sympathetic influence: the result of such influence is as fatal as the direst contagion."

My own opinion of this disease is, that it is one of nervous origin; that there is a loss of equilibrium between the nerves of voluntary and involuntary motion. The direct causes of this pathological state exist in any thing that can derange the organs of digestion. Great sympathy is known to exist between the organs of generation and the stomach: if the latter be deranged, the former feels a corresponding influence, and the sympathetic nerves are the media by which the change takes place.

It invariably follows that, as soon as impregnation takes place, the stomach from that moment takes on an irritable state, and is more susceptible to the action of unfavorable agents. Thus the odor of putrid substances cases nausea or relaxation when the animal is in a state of pregnancy; otherwise, the same odor would not affect it in the least. Professor Curtis says, "The nervous system constitutes the check lines by which the vital spirit governs, as a coachman does his horses, the whole motive apparatus of the animal economy; that every line, or pencil, or ganglion of lines, in it, is antagonistic to some other line or ganglion, so that, whenever the function of one is exalted, that of some other is depressed. It follows, of course, that to equalize the nervous action, and to sustain the equilibrium, is one of the most important duties of the physician."

In addition to the causes of abortion already enumerated, we may add violent exercise, jumping dikes or hedges, sudden frights, and blows or bruises.

Treatment.—When a cow has slipped her fœtus, and appears in good condition, the quantity of food usually given should be lessened. Give the following drink every night for a week:—

Valerian, (herb,)1 ounce.
Powdered skunk cabbage,1 tea-spoonful.