may be felt through the open mouth of the womb and recognized by the
educated touch (it must be carefully distinguished from the mushroom-formed
cotyledons (Pl. XIII, fig. 2), to which in ruminants the fetal membranes
are attached). At other times, unless the womb is opened in the effort to
expel it, the polypus can be detected only by examining the womb with the
oiled hand introduced through the rectum.
Polypi may cause a mucopurulent discharge or they may only be suspected
when they prove an obstacle to parturition. The best way to remove them is
to put the chain of an Ècraseur around the neck, or pedicle, of the tumor
and tear it through; or the narrow neck may be torn through by the
emasculator, or in an emergency it may be twisted through by rotating the
tumor on its axis. The removal of the tumor will allow calving to proceed;
after this the sore may be treated by a daily injection of one-half dram
sulphate of zinc, 1 dram carbolic acid, and 1 quart milk-warm water.
SIGNS OF PREGNANCY.
If a cow remains for three or four weeks after service without showing
signs of heat (bulling), she is probably pregnant. There are very
exceptional cases in which the well-fed cow will accept the bull weeks or
months after actual conception, and others equally exceptional in which the
well-thriven but unimpregnated female will refuse the male persistently,
but these in no way invalidate the general rule.
The bull, no matter how vigorous or how ardent his sexual instinct, can not
be made to pay any attention to a cow which is not in heat; hence
indications of pregnancy can be had from both the male and female side.
When she has conceived, the cow usually becomes more quiet and docile, and
lays on flesh and fat more rapidly, especially during the first four months
of gestation. The stimulus to digestion and nutrition created by the
demands of the growing fetus, added to the quieter and more uneventful
life, contributes to this result. Some feeders avail themselves of this
disposition to prepare heifers and cows speedily for the butcher.
The enlargement of the abdomen, and its dropping so that it bulges below
and to each side, while it falls in at the flank, between the outer angle
of the hip bone and the last rib, are significant features which, though
they may be caused by abdominal tumor or dropsy, are usually marks of
pregnancy. From the same increasing weight of the abdomen the spine in the
region of the loins sinks so that the bones of the croup seem to rise,
especially back toward the root of the tail. In the early stages of
pregnancy the udder develops slowly, and toward its completion quite
rapidly. For a long time there is merely a sense of greater fullness when
handled; the wrinkles in the skin become shallower and are effaced, and the
teats are materially enlarged. Beginning a few weeks after conception, this
tends to a steady development, though slight alternations in the sense of
successive growth and shrinkage are not uncommon. In milking cows this does
not hold, as the milk usually tends to a steady diminution and the udder
shrinks slowly until near the completion of the period, when it undergoes
its sudden, remarkable development, and yields at first a serous liquid and
then the yellow colostrum, which coagulates when heated. As pregnancy
advances the mucous membrane lining the vulva becomes swollen and of a
darker, bluish-red hue; the mucous secretion also increases, becoming very
abundant just before calving. When the feeding has not been altered or
restricted, a steady diminution of the salts of lime excreted in the urine
is an attendant on pregnancy, the lime being demanded for the growing body
of the fetus.
After the fifth month the movements of the calf may often be observed in
the right flank, nearly in front of the stifle, when the cow is drinking
cold water. The sensation of cold on the side of the first stomach, which
lies to the left and directly below the womb (Pl. I), stimulates the calf
to active movements, which are detected on the sudden jerking outward of
the abdominal wall as if from blows delivered from within. In a loose,
pendent abdomen in the latter months of gestation the skin may often be
seen pushed out at a sharp angle, irrespective of the period of drinking.
Another mode of examination through the flank is by touch. The palm of the
hand is pressed strongly inward, about 8 inches in front of the stifle and
a little below, several times in succession, and is then brought to rest
with the pressure maintained. Presently there are felt distinct and
characteristic movements of the fetus, which has been disturbed and roused
to action. Another mode is to press the closed fist strongly inward in the
same situation and hold it so, forming a deep indentation in the abdominal
wall. Presently the knuckles are felt to be struck by a solid body, which
is no other than the fetus that has been displaced to the left by the push
of the hand, and now floats back in its liquid covering (amniotic fluid;
see Pl. XII) downward and to the right.
Of all the modes of examination by touch, that done through the rectum
gives the earliest satisfactory indications. The hand and arm, well oiled,
are introduced, and the excrement having been removed if necessary, the
palm of the hand is turned downward and the floor of the pelvis carefully
examined. There will be felt in the median line the pear-shaped outline of
the bladder, more or less full, rounded or tense, according to the quantity
of urine it contains. Between this and the hand will be felt a soft,
somewhat rounded tubular body, which divides in front into two smaller
tubes or branches, extending to the right and left into the abdomen. This
is the womb, which in its virgin, or unimpregnated, condition is of nearly
uniform size from before backward, the main part or body being from 1-1/2
to 2 inches across, and the two anterior branches or horns being
individually little over an inch wide. Immediately after conception the
body and one of the horns begin to enlarge, the vacant horn remaining
disproportionately small, and the enlargement will be most marked at one
point, where a solid, rounded mass indicates the presence of the growing
embryo. In case of twins, both horns are enlarged. At a more advanced
stage, when the embryo begins to assume the form of the future animal, the
rounded form gives place to a more or less irregular nodular mass, while
later still the head, limbs, and body of the fetus may be distinctly made
out. The chief source of fallacy is found in the very pendent abdomen of
certain cows, into which in advanced gestation the fetus has dropped so low
that it can not be felt by the hand in the rectum. The absence of the
distinct outline of the vacant womb, however, and the clear indications
obtained on external examination through the right flank will serve to
prevent any mistake. The fetus may still be felt through the rectum if the
abdomen is raised by a sheet passed from side to side beneath it.
Still another sign is the beating of the fetal heart, which may be heard in
the latter half of pregnancy when the ear is pressed on the flank in front
of the right stifle or from that downward to the udder. The beats, which
are best heard in the absence of rumbling, are about 120 a minute and
easily distinguished from any bowel sounds by their perfect regularity.
DURATION OF PREGNANCY.
From extended statistics it is found that the average duration of pregnancy
in the cow is 285 days. A calf born at the two hundred and fortieth day may
live, and Dietrichs reported a case of a calf born on the three hundred and
thirty-fifth day, and another was reported by the American Journal of
Medical Science as having been born on the three hundred and thirty-sixth
day. It is the general observation that in most cases of prolonged
pregnancies the offspring are males. Lord Spencer found a preponderance of
males between the two hundred and ninetieth and the three hundredth days,
but strangely enough all born after the three hundredth day under his
observation were females. It may be reasonably inferred that while the
prevailing tendency is to carry the males overtime, yet that the smaller
and comparatively much less developed female sometimes fails to stimulate
the womb to contraction until very far beyond the regular date.
HYGIENE OF THE PREGNANT COW.
Among domestic animals considerations of hygiene must be made subservient
to profit, and therefore the first consideration is not to obtain the most
robust health, but such a measure of vigor and stamina as is compatible
with the most profitable utilization of the animal. The breeding cow must
carry a calf every year, and this notwithstanding that she is at the same
time suckling another large, growing calf. The dairy cow must breed every
year, and at the same time must furnish a generous flow of milk from nine
to eleven months yearly. If her health is lowered thereby or her life
shortened, the question of profit must still hold sway, and, when
disqualified, she must yield her place to another. There are exceptions, of
course, but this rule generally holds.
There are certain points, however, in which the interests of hygiene may be
considered. The pregnant cow should have exercise, and as regards both
exercise and feed, nothing is better than a run on a smooth pasture. She
should be withheld from all violent excitement, hunting with dogs, riding
or being ridden by cows in heat, driving in herd rapidly through narrow
gateways, causing to jump ditches or fences, subjecting to blows with the
horns of pugnacious cattle, driving on icy or otherwise slippery ground,
carrying in railroad cars, kicking by vicious attendants, and fastening or
throwing down for operations. The diet should be good, not of a kind to
fatten, but with a generous quantity of nitrogenous constituents which will
favor both the yield of milk and the nourishment of the fetus. Aliments
like wheat bran, middlings, etc., which are rich in lime and phosphates,
can be used to advantage, as there is a constant drain of earthy salts for
the building of the body of the calf, and thereby the danger of undue
concentration of the urine is lessened. Hard, innutritious, and
indigestible aliments, musty grain or hay, partially ripened rye grass,
millet, Hungarian grass, vetches, peas, or maize are objectionable, as they
are liable to cause indigestion or even paralysis; and corn or hay affected
by smut or ergot, or that has been spoiled by wet, overripened, and
rendered fibrous and innutritious, is equally objectionable. In the main
the feed should be laxative, as costiveness and straining are liable to
cause abortion. Roots and green feed that have been frosted are
objectionable, as being liable to cause indigestion, though in their fresh
condition most wholesome and desirable. Ice-cold water should be avoided,
as calculated to check the flow of milk, to derange digestion, and to cause
abortion. A good temperature for the drink of the dairy cow is 55∞ F.
In the case of plethoric and heavy-milking cows of mature age and in the
prime of life, the hitherto liberal diet must be changed at the last week
for the scantiest possible fare, and the bowels must be kept open by
laxatives, if need be, if the owner would avoid milk fever. Her stall
should not incline downward from shoulder to croup, lest the pressure of
the abdominal organs should produce protrusion or abortion. She should be
kept aloof from all causes of acute diseases, and all existing diseases
should be remedied speedily and with as little excitement of the abdominal
organs as possible. Strong purgatives and diuretics are to be especially
avoided, unless it is in the very last days of gestation in very plethoric
cows.
PROTRUSION OF THE VAGINA (PROLAPSUS VAGIN∆).
During pregnancy this is common from chronic relaxation of the vaginal
walls and from lying in stalls that are lower behind than in front. The
protrusion is of a rounded form and smooth, and if it embraces both sides
of the canal it is double, with a passage between. It may sometimes be
remedied by raising the hind part of the stall higher than the front part.
This failing, a truss may be applied as for eversion of the womb, and worn
until the period of calving approaches. (Pls. XXII, XXIII.)
HERNIA (BREACH) OF THE UTERUS.
In advanced pregnancy this occurs usually from a gradual relaxation and
distention of the lower wall of the abdomen in the region of the udder, so
that the latter is displaced downward, and in the sac above and in front of
it may be felt the form and movements of the fetus. In other cases the womb
escapes through a great laceration of the abdominal muscles to one side of
the udder, and the hernial mass extends down to one side of that organ.
However unsightly, this often allows the animal to complete its pregnancy
naturally, and a broad, supporting bandage placed around the abdomen is
about all that can be recommended. After calving it is best to fatten the
cow.
CRAMPS OF THE HIND LIMBS.
The compression of the nerves by the womb and fetus passing through the
pelvis sometimes causes cramp and inability to move the limb, but it
disappears under friction and motion and is never seen after calving.
DROPSY OF THE HIND LIMBS AND BETWEEN THE THIGHS.
In the latter months of pregnancy the hind legs may swell beneath the
hocks, or a soft swelling which pits on pressure with the finger appears
from the vulva down between the thighs to the udder and in front. It is
mainly ascribable to the pressure of the enlarged womb on the blood
vessels, is not dangerous, and disappears after calving.
DROPSY OF THE MEMBRANES OF THE FETUS (DROPSY OF THE WOMB).
The unimpregnated womb may be filled with a dropsical fluid, but the
pregnant womb is more liable to become overdistended by an excess of fluid
in the inner water bag in which the fetus floats. (Pl. XII.) From an
unhealthy state of this membrane or of blood of the fetus (water blood)
this liquid may go on accumulating until the cow seems almost as broad as
she is long. If the trouble has not originated in the ill health of the
cow, the result is still to draw on her system, overtax her strength, and
derange her digestion, so that the result may prove fatal to both mother
and offspring. On the other hand, I have known extreme cases that came to
the natural term without help and produced a living calf, after which the
dam did well. The natural resort is to draw off a portion of the fluid
through a hollow needle passed through the neck of the womb or through its
tense wall adjacent. This may be repeated several times, as demanded, to
relieve the cow from the injurious distention.
PARALYSIS OF THE HIND PARTS.
In ill-fed, weak, unthrifty cows palsy of the hind limbs and tail may
appear in the last weeks of pregnancy. The anus and rectum may participate
in the palsy so far as to prevent defecation, and the rectum is more or
less completely impacted. Exposure to wet and cold are often accessory
causes, though the low condition, general weakness, and the pressure on the
nerves going to the hind limbs are not to be forgotten. Something may be
done for these cases by a warm, dry bed, an abundant diet fed warm,
frictions with straw wisps or with a liniment of equal parts of oil of
turpentine and sweet oil on the loins, croup, and limbs, by the daily use
of ginger and gentian, by the cautious administration of strychnia (1 grain
twice daily), and by sending a current of electricity daily from the loins
through the various groups of muscles in the hind limbs. The case becomes
increasingly hopeful after calving, though some days may still elapse
before the animal can support herself upon her limbs.
EXTRAUTERINE GESTATION (FETUS DEVELOPING OUTSIDE THE WOMB).
These curious cases are rare and are usually divided into three types: (1)
That in which the fetus is formed in or on the ovary (ovarian gestation);
(2) that in which it is lodged in the Fallopian tube, or canal between the
ovary and womb (tubal gestation); and (3) that in which it is lodged in the
abdominal cavity and attached to one or more of its contents from which it
draws its nourishment (abdominal gestation). Undoubted cases of the first
and last varieties are recorded as occurring in the cow. The explanation of
such cases is to be found in the fact that the actively moving sperm cells
(spermatozoa) thrown into the womb have made their way through the
Fallopian tubes to the ovary. If they met and impregnated an ovum in the
tube, and if the consequent growth of that ovum prevented its descent and
caused its imprisonment within the tube, it developed there, getting
attached to and drawing nourishment from the mucous walls. Such product has
its development arrested by compression by the undilatable tube, or,
bursting through the walls of the tube, it escapes into the abdomen and
perishes. If, on the contrary, the spermatozoa only meet and impregnate the
ovum on or in the ovary, the development may take place in the substance of
the ovary, from which the fetus draws its nourishment, or the impregnated
ovum, escaping between the ovary and the open end of the tube, falls into
the abdominal cavity and becomes adherent to and draws nourishment from
some of the abdominal organs (womb, bowel, liver, stomach, etc.).
_Symptoms._--The symptoms are those of pregnancy, which may be suddenly
complicated by inflammation (peritonitis), owing to rupture of the sac
containing the fetus; or at full term signs of calving appear, but no
progress is made; an examination with the oiled hand in the vagina or
rectum finds the womb empty and its mouth closed. Further examination will
disclose the fetal sac attached in some part of the abdominal cavity and
containing the more or less perfectly developed body of a calf. In the most
hopeful cases the fetus perishes at an early stage of gestation, becomes
inclosed in a fibrous sac, and is slowly absorbed, its soft parts becoming
liquefied and removed and the bones remaining encysted. In some cases the
bones have finally sloughed into the rectum or through an artificial
opening in the side of the belly.
_Treatment._--Little can be done in such cases except to quiet pain and
excitement by anodynes (opium, chloral, etc.) and leave the rest to nature.
A fistula discharging bones may be dilated and the bones extracted, the sac
being then washed out with a solution of 10 grains bichlorid of mercury in
a quart of water. In certain cases with a live calf a skillful operator may
be justified in cutting into the abdomen and extracting the calf with its
membranes, using the lotion just named as an antiseptic.
PROLONGED RETENTION OF THE FETUS.
Even when the fetus has developed within the womb it may fail to be
delivered at the proper time; labor pains have quickly subsided and the cow
resumed her usual health. In such cases the calf dies, and its soft parts
are gradually liquefied and absorbed, while its bones remain for years in
the womb inclosed in the remains of the fetal membranes. These may be
expelled at any time through the natural channels, or they may remain
indefinitely in the womb, not interfering with the general health, but
preventing conception.
If the true condition of things is recognized at the time of the subsidence
of the labor pains, the mouth of the womb may be dilated by the fingers, by
the insertion of sponge tents, or by a mechanical dilator (Pl. XX, fig. 6),
the fetal membranes may be ruptured and the calf extracted. After the
removal of the calf and its membranes the danger of putrid poisoning may be
obviated by injecting the antiseptic solution advised in the paragraph
above.
ABORTION (SLINKING THE CALF).
Technically, abortion is the term used for the expulsion of the offspring
before it can live out of the womb. Its expulsion before the normal time,
but after it is capable of an independent existence, is premature
parturition. In the cow this may be after seven and one-half months of
pregnancy. Earl Spencer failed to raise any calf born before the two
hundred and forty-second day. Dairymen use the term abortion for the
expulsion of the product of conception at any time before the completion of
the full period of a normal pregnancy, and in this sense it will be used in
this article.
Abortion in cows is either contagious or noncontagious. It does not follow
that the contagium is the sole cause in every case in which it is present.
We know that the organized germs (microbes) of contagion vary much in
potency at different times, and that the animal system also varies in
susceptibility to their attack. The germ may therefore be present in a herd
without any manifest injury, its disease-producing power having for the
time abated considerably, or the whole herd being in a condition of
comparative insusceptibility. At other times the same germ may have become
so virulent that almost all pregnant cows succumb to its force, or the herd
may have been subjected to other causes of abortion which, though of
themselves powerless to actually cause abortion, may yet so predispose the
animals that even the weaker germ will operate with destructive effect. In
dealing with this disease, therefore, it is the part of wisdom not to rest
satisfied with the discovery and removal of one specific cause, but rather
to try to find every existent cause and to obtain a remedy by correcting
all the harmful conditions.
NONCONTAGIOUS ABORTION.
As abortion most frequently occurs at those three-week intervals at which
the cow would have been in heat if nonpregnant, we may assume a
predisposition at such times owing to a periodicity in the nervous system
and functions. Poor condition, weakness, and a too watery state of the
blood is often a predisposing cause. This in its turn may result from poor
or insufficient feed, from the excessive drain upon the udder while bearing
the calf, from the use of feed deficient in certain essential elements,
like the nitrogenous constituents or albuminoids, from chronic, wasting
diseases, from roundworms or tapeworms in the bowels, from flat-worms
(flukes, trematodes) in the liver, from worms in the lungs, from dark,
damp, unhealthful buildings, etc. In some such cases the nourishment is so
deficient that the fetus dies in the womb and is expelled in consequence.
Excessive loss of blood, attended as it usually is with shock, becomes a
direct cause of abortion.
Acute inflammations of important organs are notorious causes of abortion,
and in most contagious fevers (lung plague, rinderpest, foot-and-mouth
disease) it is a common result. Affections of the chest which prevent due
aeration of the blood induce contractions of the womb, as shown
experimentally by Brown-Sequard. Pregnant women suffocated in smoke aborted
in many cases. (Retoul.)
Ergoted grasses have long been known as a cause of widespread abortion in
cows. The ergot is familiar as the dark purple or black, hard, spurlike
growths which protrude from the seeds of the grasses at the period of their
ripening. (Pl. V.) It is especially common, in damp localities and cloudy
seasons on meadows shaded by trees and protected against the free sweep of
the winds. The same is to a large extent true of smut; hence, wet years
have been often remarkable for the great prevalence of abortions. Abortions
have greatly increased in New Zealand among cows since the introduction of
rye grass, which is specially subject to ergot. As abortion is more
prevalent in old dairying districts, the ergot may not be the sole cause in
this instance.
The riding of one another by cows is attended by such severe muscular
exertion, jars, jolts, mental excitement, and gravitation of the womb and
abdominal organs backward that it may easily cause abortion in a
predisposed animal.
Keeping in stalls that slope too much behind (more than 2 inches) acts in
the same way, the compression from lying and the gravitation backward
proving more than a predisposed cow can safely bear.