Part 34

This may occur in the male from too frequent sexual intercourse, or from injury and congestion of the base of the brain (vasodilator center in the medulla), or of the posterior end of the spinal cord, or it may be kept up by congestion or inflammation of the testicles or of the mucous membrane covering the penis. It may be manifested by a constant or frequent erection, by attempts at sexual connection, and sometimes by the discharge of semen without connection. In bad cases the feverishness and restlessness lead to loss of flesh, emaciation, and physical weakness.

It is, however, in the female especially that this morbid desire is most noticeable and injurious. It may be excited by the stimulating quality of the blood in cows fed to excess on highly nitrogenous feed, as the seeds of the bean, pea, vetch, and tare, and as wheat bran, middlings, cotton seed, gluten meal, etc., especially in the case of such as have no free exercise in the fields, and are subject to constant association with a vigorous young bull. A more frequent cause is the excitation or congestion of some part of the genital organs. Disease of the ovaries is preeminently the cause, and this may be by the formation of cysts (sacs containing liquid) or of solid tumors or degenerations, or, more commonly than all, the formation of tubercle. Indeed, in case of tuberculosis attacking the abdominal organs of cows, the ovaries or the serous membranes that support and cover them (the broad ligaments of the womb) are peculiarly subject to attack, and the animal has constant sexual excitement, incessantly riding or being ridden by other cattle, having no leisure to eat or chew the cud, but moving restlessly, wearing the flesh off its bones, and gradually wasting. In some localities these cows are known as "bullers," because they are nearly always disposed to take the bull, but they do not conceive, or, if they do, they are subject to early abortions. They are, therefore, useless alike for the dairy and for the feeder, unless the removal of the ovaries subdues the sexual excitement, when, in the absence of tuberculous disease elsewhere, they may be fattened for the butcher.

Among the other sources of irritation charged with causing nymphomania are tumors and cancers of the womb, rigid closure of the neck of the womb so that conception can not occur and the frequent services by the male which stimulate the unsatisfied appetite, inflammation, and a purulent discharge from the womb or vagina.

Treatment.--The treatment in each case will vary with the cause and is most satisfactory when that cause is a removable one. Overfeeding on richly nitrogenous feed can be stopped, exercise in the open field given, diseased ovaries may be removed (see "Castration," p. 299), catarrhs of the womb and passages overcome by antiseptic, astringent injections (see "Leucorrhea," p. 224), and tumors of the womb may often be detached and extracted, the mouth of that organ having been first dilated by sponge tents or otherwise. The rubber dilator (impregnator), sometimes helpful in the mare, is rarely available for the cow, owing to the different condition of the mouth of the womb.

DIMINUTION OR LOSS OF VENEREAL DESIRE (ANAPHRODISIA).

This occurs in either sex from low condition and ill health. Longstanding, chronic diseases of important internal organs, leading to emaciation and weakness, or a prolonged semistarvation in winter may be sufficient cause. It is, however, much more common as the result of degeneration or extensive and destructive disease of the secreting organs (testicles, ovaries) which elaborate the male and female sexual products, respectively. Such diseases are, therefore, a common cause of sterility in both sexes. The old bull, fat and lazy, becomes sluggish and unreliable in serving, and finally gets to be useless for breeding purposes. This is not attributable to his weight and clumsiness alone, but largely to the fatty degeneration of his testicles and their excretory ducts, which prevents the due formation and maturation of the semen. If he has been kept in extra high condition for exhibition in the show ring, this disqualification comes upon him sooner and becomes more irremediable.

Similarly the overfed, inactive cow, and above all the show cow, fails to come in heat at the usual times, shows little disposition to take the bull, and fails to conceive when served. Her trouble is the same in kind, namely, fatty degeneration of the ovaries and of their excretory ducts (Fallopian tubes), which prevents the formation or maturation of the ovum or, when it has formed, hinders its passage into the womb. Another common defect in such old, fat cows is a rigid closure of the mouth of the womb, which prevents conception, even if the ovum reaches the interior of that organ and even if the semen is discharged into the vagina.

Preventive.--The true preventive of such conditions is to be found in a sound hygiene. The breeding animal should be of adult age, neither overfed nor underfed, but well fed and moderately exercised; in other words, the most vigorous health should be sought, not only that a strong race may be propagated, but that the whole herd, or nearly so, may breed with certainty. Fleming gives 79 per cent as the general average of cows that are found to breed in one year. Here more than a fifth of the progeny is sacrificed and a fifth of the product of the dairy. With careful management the proportion of breeders should approach 100 per cent. The various local and general obstacles to conception should be carefully investigated and removed. The vigorous health which comes from a sufficiently liberal diet and abundant exercise should be solicited, and the comparative bloodlessness and weakness which advance with undue fattening should be sedulously avoided. In bull or cow which is becoming unduly fat and showing indications of sexual indifference, the treatment must be active. Turning out on a short pasture where it must work hard for a living will often suffice. The bull which can not be turned out to pasture may sometimes be utilized in the yoke or tread power, or he may be kept a part of his time in a field or paddock chained by the ring in his nose to a strong wire extending from one side of the lot to the other and attached securely to two trees or posts. The wire should be higher than the back of the bull, which will move frequently from end to end. If he is indisposed to take sufficient exercise in this way he may be safely driven. An instance of the value of the exercise in these incipient cases of fatty degeneration is often quoted. The cow Dodona, condemned as barren at Earl Spencer's, was sold cheap to Jonas Webb, who had her driven by a road a distance of 120 miles to his farm at Wilbraham, soon after which she became pregnant. In advanced cases, however, in which the fatty degeneration is complete, recovery is impossible.

In case of rigid closure of the mouth of the womb the only resort is dilatation. This is far more difficult and uncertain in the cow than in the mare. The neck of the womb is longer, is often tortuous in its course, and its walls so approximated to each other and so rigid that it may be all but impossible to follow it, and there is always danger of perforating its walls and opening into the cavity of the abdomen, or, short of that, of causing inflammation and a new, rigid, fibrous formation which on healing leaves matters worse than before. The opening must be carefully made with the finger, and when that has entered the womb further dilatation may be effected by inserting a sponge tent or by careful stretching with a mechanical dilator. (Pl. XX, fig. 6.)

STERILITY FROM OTHER CAUSES.

The questions as to whether a bull is a sure stock getter and whether a cow is a breeder are so important that it would be wrong to pass over other prominent causes of sterility. Breeding at too early an age is a common source of increasing weakness of constitution which has existed in certain breeds. Jerseys have especially been made the victims of this mistake, the object being to establish the highest milking powers in the smallest obtainable body which will demand the least material and outlay for its constant repair of waste. With success in this line there has been the counterbalancing disadvantage of impaired vigor, with too often lessened fertility as well as increased predisposition to disease. When the heifers of the race have for generation after generation been bred under a year old, the demand for the nourishment of the fetus is too great a drain on the immature animal, which accordingly remains small and stunted. As it fails to develop in size, so every organ fails to be nourished to perfection. Similarly with the immature bull put to too many cows; he fails to develop his full size, vigor, or stamina, and transfers his acquired weakness to his progeny. An increasing number of barren females and an increasing proclivity to abortions are the necessary results of both courses. When this early breeding has occurred accidentally it is well to dry up the dam just after calving, and to avoid having her served again until full grown.

Some highly fed and plethoric females seem to escape conception by the very intensity of the generative ardor. The frequent passage of urine, accompanied by contractions of the womb and vagina and a profuse secretion from their surfaces, leads to the expulsion of the semen after it has been lodged in the genital passages. This may be remedied somewhat by giving 1-1/2 pounds of Epsom salt a day or two before she comes in heat, and subjecting her at the same time to a spare diet. Should the excessive ardor of the cow not be controllable in this way, she may be shut up for a day or two, until the heat is passing off, when under the lessened excitement the semen is more likely to be retained.

The various diseases of the ovaries, their tubes, the womb, the testicles and their excretory ducts, as referred to under "Excess of venereal desire," are causes of barrenness. In this connection it may be said that the discharges consequent on calving are fatal to the vitality of semen introduced before these have ceased to flow; hence service too soon after calving, or that of a cow which has had the womb or genital passages injured so as to keep up a mucopurulent flow until the animal comes in heat, is liable to fail of conception. Any such discharge should be first arrested by repeated injections as for leucorrhea, after which the male may be admitted.

Feeding on a very saccharine diet, which greatly favors the deposition of fat, seems to have an even more direct effect in preventing conception during such regimen. Among other causes of barrenness are all those that favor abortion, ergoted grasses, smutty wheat or corn, laxative or diuretic drinking water, and any improper or musty feed that causes indigestions, colics, and diseases of the urinary organs, notably gravel; also savin, rue, cantharides, and all other irritants of the bowels or kidneys.

Hermaphrodites are barren, of course, as their sexual organs are not distinctively either male or female. The heifer born as a twin with a bull is usually hermaphrodite and barren, but the animals of either sex in which development of the organs is arrested before they are fully matured remain as in the male or female prior to puberty, and are barren. Bulls with both testicles retained within the abdomen may go through the form of serving a cow, but the service is unfruitful; the spermatozoa are not fully elaborated. So I have examined a heifer with a properly formed but very small womb and an extremely narrow vagina and vulva, the walls of which were very muscular, that could never be made to conceive. A post-mortem examination would probably have disclosed an imperfectly formed ovary incapable of bringing ova to maturity.

A bull and cow that have been too closely inbred in the same line for generations may prove sexually incompatible and unable to generate together, though both are abundantly prolific when coupled with animals of other strains.

Finally, a bull may prove unable to get stock, not from any lack of sexual development, but from disease of other organs (back, loins, hind limbs), which renders him unable to mount with the energy requisite to the perfect service.

CONGESTION AND INFLAMMATION OF THE TESTICLES (ORCHITIS).

This visually results from blows or other direct injuries, but may be the result of excessive service or of the formation of some new growth (tumor) in the gland tissue. The bull moves stiffly, with straddling gait, and the right or left half of the scrotum in which the affected testicle lies is swollen, red, and tender, and the gland is drawn up within the sac and dropped again at frequent intervals. It may be treated by rest; by 1-1/2 pounds Epsom salt given in 4 quarts of water; by a restricted diet of some succulent feed; by continued fomentations with warm water by means of sponges or rags sustained by a sling passed around the loins and back between the hind legs. The pain may be allayed by smearing with a solution of opium or of extract of belladonna. Should a soft point appear, indicating the formation of matter, it may be opened with a sharp lancet and the wound treated daily with a solution of a teaspoonful of carbolic acid in a half pint of water. Usually, however, when the inflammation has proceeded to this extent, the gland will be ruined for purposes of procreation and must be cut out. (See "Castration," p. 299.)

INFLAMMATION OF THE SHEATH.

While this may occur in bulls from infection during copulation and from bruises, blows, and other mechanical injuries, the condition is more common in the ox in connection with the comparative inactivity of the parts. The sheath has a very small external opening, the mucous membrane of which is studded with sebaceous glands secreting a thick, unctuous matter of a strong, heavy odor. Behind this orifice is a distinct pouch, in which this unctuous matter is liable to accumulate when the penis is habitually drawn back. Moreover, the sheath has two muscles (protractors) which lengthen it, passing into it from the region of the navel, and two (retractors) that shorten it, passing into it from the lower surface of the pelvic bones above. (Pl. IX, fig. 2.) The protractors keep the sheath stretched, so that it habitually covers the penis, while the retractors shorten it up in the act of service, so that the penis can project to its full extent. In stud bulls the frequent protrusion of the erect and enlarged penis and the retraction and dilation of the opening of the sheath serve to empty the pouch and prevent any accumulation of sebaceous matter or urine. In the ox, on the other hand, the undeveloped and inactive penis is usually drawn back so as to leave the anterior preputial pouch empty, so that the sebaceous matter has space to accumulate and is never expelled by the active retraction of the sheath and protrusion of the erect penis in service. Again, the ox rarely protrudes the tip of the penis in urination, the urine is discharged into the preputial pouch and lodges and decomposes there, so that there is a great liability to the precipitation of its earthy salts in the form of gravel. The decomposing ammoniacal urine, the gritty crystals precipitated from it, and the fetid, rancid, sebaceous matter set up inflammation in the delicate mucous membrane lining the passage. The membrane is thickened, reddened, rendered friable, and ultimately ulcerated, and the now narrowed sheath is blocked by the increasing mass of sebaceous and urinous material and the decomposing mucus and pus. The penis can no longer be protruded, the urine escapes in a small stream through the narrowing sheath, and finally the outlet is completely blocked and the urine distends the back part of the sheath. This will fluctuate on being handled, and soon the unhealthy inflammation extends on each side of it, causing a thick, doughy, tender swelling under the belly and between the thighs. The next step in the morbid course is overdistention of the bladder, with the occurrence of colicky pains, looking at the flanks, uneasy movements of the hind limbs, raising or twisting of the tail, pulsatory contractions of the urethra under the anus, and finally a false appearance of relief, which is caused by rupture of the bladder. Before rupture takes place the distended bladder may press on the rectum and obstruct the passage of the bowel dejections. Two mistakes are therefore probable--first, that the bowels alone are to be relieved, and, second, that the trouble is obstruction of the urethra by a stone. Hence the need of examining the sheath and pushing the finger into its opening to see that there is no obstruction there, in all cases of retention of urine, overdistended bladder, or blocked rectum in the ox. The disease may be acute or chronic--the first by reason of acute, adhesive inflammation blocking the outlet, the second by gradual thickening and ulceration of the sheath and blocking by the sebaceous and calculous accretion.

Treatment.--The treatment of this affection depends on the stage. If recent and without instant danger of rupture of the bladder, the narrow opening of the sheath should be freely cut open in the median line below, and the sac emptied out with a finger or spoon, after which it should be thoroughly washed with tepid water. To make the cleansing more thorough a catheter or a small, rubber tube may be inserted well back into the sheath, and water may be forced through it from a syringe or a funnel inserted into the other end of the tube and considerably elevated. A fountain syringe, which should be in every house, answers admirably. The sheath may be daily washed out with tepid water, with a suds made with Castile soap, or with a weak solution of sulphate of zinc (one-half dram to a quart of water). If these attentions are impossible, most cases, after cleansing, will do well if merely driven through clean water up to the belly once a day.

In case the disease has progressed to absolute obstruction, with the bladder ready to rupture any moment, no time must be lost in opening into the urethra with a sharp knife over the bony arch under the anus, where the pulsations are seen in urinating. This incision is best made in the median line from above downward, but in the absence of a skillful operator a transverse incision with a sharp knife over the bone in the median line until the urine flows with a gush is better than to let the patient die. Considerable blood will be lost and the wound will heal tardily, but the ox will be preserved. Then the slitting and cleansing of the sheath can be done at leisure, as described above. If the bladder is ruptured, the case is hopeless.

INFLAMMATION OF THE SHEATH AND PENIS FROM BRUISING.

This also is an affection of work oxen, caused by the pressure and friction of the sling when the animals are held in stocks for shoeing. This crushing of both sheath and penis for half an hour or more leads to the development, some hours later, of a hard, hot, and painful swelling, extending from the scrotum as far as the opening of the sheath. Fever sets in, with dry muzzle, red eyes, hard, full, rapid pulse, accelerated breathing, and elevated temperature. The ox stands obstinately with his hind legs drawn apart and urine falling drop by drop from the sheath. Appetite and rumination are suspended. In twenty-four hours there may be indications of advancing gangrene (mortification), the swelling becomes cold, soft, and doughy; it may even crack slightly from the presence of gas; a reddish brown, fetid liquid oozes from the swelling, especially around the edges, and if the animal survives it is only with a great loss of substance of the sheath and penis.

Prevention.--The prevention of such an injury is easy. It is only necessary to see that the slings do not press upon the posterior part of the abdomen. They must be kept in front of the sheath.

Treatment.--Treatment, to be effective, must be prompt and judicious. Put around the patient a strap with soft pads in contact with the affected parts, constantly soaked in cold water for at least 24 hours. A pound or two of Epsom salt in 4 quarts of hot water should also be given. The second day the parts may be washed with 1 quart of witch-hazel (extract), 2 drams sugar of lead, and 1 ounce laudanum, or the cold-water irrigations may be continued if the active inflammation persists. In case the swelling continues hard and resistant, it may be pricked at the most prominent points to the depth of one-third of an inch with a lancet first dipped in dilute carbolic acid, and the whole surface should be washed frequently with some antiseptic solution.

When softening occurs in the center of a hard mass and fluctuation can be felt between two fingers pressed on different parts of such softening, it should be freely opened to let out the putrid pus, and the cavity should be syringed often with antiseptic solution.