REPORT OF THE VETERINARIAN. 



Tff the Director of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, 



Sir:— 



Under the auspices of the Agricultural Experiment Station a series 

 of investigations have been made into the nature and causes of con- 

 tagious abortion in cows. While these were seriously restricted for 

 lack of means, and were necessarily left incomplete, yet in reporting 

 progress, certain points may be named as fairly indicated by the work 

 already accomplished : 



1. We failed to find in the aborting herds of New York the germ 

 described by Bang as the cause of abortion in Denmark. 



2. As the result of a very extended series of cultures from the 

 uterine products of the aborting animals in widely different parts of the 

 state, Dr. Moore has found in all such cases a specific bacillus, which 

 is not found in such uterine products in the parturient cows in healthy 

 herds, and this is, therefore, in all probability, an important factor in 

 the production of the disease. 



3. The introduction of this bacillus into the vagina of healthy cows 

 in advanced pregnancy did not hinder such animals from carrying the 

 foetus the full time, but the bacillus continued to propagate itself in the 

 vagina for months both before and after parturition. As abortions 

 often occur at the sixth and seventh month, when the germ was pre- 

 sumably present at conception, this failure to cause abortion when 

 introduced in the last half of pregnancy is not surprising. 



4. Two healthy cows into the passages of which the bacillus was 

 introduced very shortly after service, retained the germ for months, 

 but failed to carry on gestation, the early embryo having probably 

 passed out in a mucopurulent discharge which continued for a con- 

 siderable time. 



5. From extensive data collected from all parts of the state it 

 appears that though contagious abortion often prevails in a herd for 

 a period of ten or fifteen years, yet it is mainly in the newly purchased 

 animals, or in animals pregnant with their first or second calf, and 



