[Diagnosis and treatment of postpartum endometritis in cattle]

The bovine genital tracts of 120 animals in which parturition had run a highly abnormal course and those of thirty which had calved normally and showed retained placentas were studied by vaginoscopic examination and bacteriological examination on the fifteenth, seventeenth and thirtieth day after parturition. The animals were classified at random into four groups. Three groups underwent intra-uterine treatment (with antibiotics, lotagen and polyvinylpyrrolidone iodine respectively) on the fifteenth day after parturition and one group remained untreated. The methods of treatment used did not result in more rapid healing of the uterus, which was verified by the results of vaginoscopic examinations as well as by those of bacteriological examination. An outstanding feature consisted in the fact that the uterus has an effective self-cleansing mechanism. Bacteriological examination was positive in 132 out of 150 animals on the fifteenth day after parturition. Only seventy-five animals were positive on the thirtieth day after parturition. The number of animals positive for C. pyogenes dropped from eighty-four (day 15) to forty-three (day 30). There was a marked correlation between the results of vaginoscopic examination and those of bacteriological examination of the uterus. When the discharge was mucopurulent or purulent thirty days after parturition, bacteriological examination was positive in 64 and 74 per cent of the cases respectively. C. pyogenes could be isolated in 74 and 93 per cent of the cases respectively and usually was present in the form of pure cultures. It is concluded that there is no point in carrying out a single intra-uterine treatment about the fifteenth day after parturition in cattle affected with endometritis.