Veterinary Obstetrics

a veterinary discipline which studies the physiological processes and their disruptions in the animal organism during sexual activity, pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period, as well as diseases of neonates. Veterinary obstetrics is also concerned with the theory and practices of artificial insemination of agricultural animals and the study of obstetrics techniques and questions concerning the organization of reproduction of the herd.

Veterinary obstetrics is based upon a number of general theoretical and practical disciplines, such as the anatomy of agricultural animals, histology, embryology, biochemistry, microbiology, physiology, and surgery.

The first textbook on veterinary obstetrics in Russia is considered to be Veterinarnaia rodovspomogatel’naia nauka s otdeleniem o bolezniakh detenyshei (Veterinary Obstetric Science with a Section on Diseases of the Young), published in 1849 by G. M. Prozorov, a professor at the Medicosurgical Academy. Independent chairs of veterinary obstetrics were organized at the Moscow (1919), Kazan’ (1922), and Leningrad (1922) veterinary institutes. The textbook written by professor N. F. Myshkin on veterinary obstetrics was published in 1931.

Soviet scientists have proposed classifications of animal sterility, abortions, and mastitis. Various methods have been developed for diagnosing pregnancy and treating diseases of the birth canal and sex organs. In contrast to veterinary practices abroad, great attention is paid in the USSR to questions of preventive obstetric and gynecological diseases in agricultural animals.

The scientific elaboration of obstetric problems is carried out at the All-Union Institute of Experimental Veterinary Science; the Moscow Veterinary Academy; the Leningrad, Kazan’, and other veterinary institutes; and the veterinary scientific research laboratories. The research results are published in the scientific proceedings of the veterinary institutes, in the journal Veterinariia (published since 1924), and in the individual zootechnical journals.