HOLY COW

"The plastic intrauterine devices that have proved successful in limiting human pregnancies may provide one answer to India's problem of unwanted reproduction on the part of the 40 million ownerless, hungry, scavenging, substandard, unproductive but nonetheless revered cattle that roam the country... Because castration is almost as unacceptable to Hindus as slaughter, Frank W. Parker, a U.S. Government rural redevelopment specialist long stationed in India, hit on the alternative idea of contraception. At this suggestion animal husbandry experts at the Beltsville, Md, research center of the Department of Agriculture recently equipped 18 cows with plastic spirals and then attempted artificial insemination. A control group of 21 cows averaged 1.8 services per conception; all the protected 18 remained infertile during a series of 42 services. News of the results has been optimistically received by the Indian Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and plans for a pilot project are under way." Scientific American, January 1965.

But what if a cow should be in the moo'd for love?