Part 3

Preventive Inoculation.--This is still in the experimental stage and definite results are hoped for. (Abridged.)

The Committee refrained from making any recommendations in regard to measures to be taken by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for the prevention of the disease.

Experience in connection with the beef cattle herd at the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station with the methods of isolation, careful disposal of infected material, cleaning and disinfection of infected stalls, antiseptic irrigation of the genital passages of cows which had aborted, and antiseptic irrigation of the bull before and after service, together with the use of a special bull for heifers and clean cows, has been very satisfactory. These measures were applied under the direction of Professor H. W. Mumford and Mr. H. O. Allison. During the year previous to the inauguration of these measures a large percentage of the calves were lost by abortion. A decided improvement in respect to the number of calves saved was coincident with the use of the procedures mentioned above. They were applied to each case of abortion as it occurred, until in the course of two years abortions have become very infrequent and the herd is now considered free from the disease. It should be noted, however, that those cows which had aborted were not necessarily disposed of, but after local irrigation treatment until the discharge had ceased, they were bred again. Some of the improvement in the herd has, therefore, doubtless been due merely to the retention of relatively immune cows.

Altho the experience here has been rather fortunate and the results obtained seem to bear some relation to the employment of the measures deemed worthy by the British Committee, we hesitate to state that there was any necessary relation between them, because cattle men have observed somewhat similar improvement in herds without the use of any treatment at all. In other words, there appears to be a tendency for the disease sometimes to die out in a herd or to become quiescent for a year or two. On the other hand, the recommendations of the British Committee supported as they seem to be by our local experience, certainly warrant the recommendation of these measures for use in combating contagious abortion. In any event good results cannot be expected without intelligent, careful, and painstaking work, and it may be that some of the failures in applying these measures have resulted from lack of efficiency in applying them rather than from insufficiency of the measures themselves.

References

1. =Bang.= Die Aetiologie des seuchenhaften ("infectiösen") Verwertens. Ztschr. f. Thiermed. 1: 241-278. 1897.

2. =Board of Agriculture and Fisheries= (Great Britain). Report of the Departmental Committee to inquire into Epizoötic Abortion. Part 1. Epizoötic Abortion in Cattle. London, 1909.

3. =Chester.= A Manual of Determinative Bacteriology. 1901.

4. =McFadyean and Stockman.= Epizoötic Abortion. Report. Dept. Com. Bd. Agr. and Fisheries. (Gt. Brit.), Appendix to Part I, 1909. Review in Expt. Sta. Record =22=: 584-586. 1910.

5. =MacNeal= and =Kerr=. Bacillus abortus of Bang, the cause of contagious abortion in cattle. Jour. Infect. Diseases =7=: 469-475 (1910).

6. =Nocard,= Review by =Bang=. Ztschr. f. Thiermed, =1=: 243-246. 1897.

7. =Nowak.= Le bacille de Bang et sa biologie. Annales de l'Institut Pasteur =22=: 541-546. 1908.

8. =Preisz.= Der Bacillus des seuchenhaften Verwerfens. Centralbl. f. Bakt. etc., I Abt. Orig. =33=: 190-196 (1903).

9. =Zwick.= Ueber den Erreger des infectiösen Abortus des Rindes. Centralbl. f. Bakt. etc., Beilage zu I Abt. Ref. =47=: 219-220. 1910.

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