No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 121 



sand dollars every year. It is now known that the light that has 

 been thrown upon this disease and the treatments that have been 

 recommended by Noeard, Bang and others has resulted in enormous 

 savings to the owners of dairy herds. Until this disease was thor- 

 oughly studied and it was traced to a definite infection, the owners 

 of dairy herds were helpless. They couJd not combat the trouble 

 because they did not know what caused it, nor why the cows 

 aborted. Diverse theories arose as to the cause of abortion, which 

 was ascribed to ail sorts of dietetic and hvgienic errors. As soon 

 as the bacterial cause of the disease was discovered by Bang and 

 it was shown how this germ operates and is conveyed from animal 

 to animal, it was possible to adopt effective preventive measures. 



The occurrence of abortion can not wholly be prevented, but there 

 is now no excuse, excepting ignorance or uncleanliness, for the con- 

 tinuation and propagation of this disease in a herd of cows. 



This subject is one upon which a considerable amount of work of 

 investigation has been conducted under the auspices of the State 

 Live Stock Sanitary Board. Not only have bacteriological studies 

 been made of the membranes and fluids of aborted foetuses and of 

 the uterine contents of aborting cows, but aborting herds have been 

 taken in charge and have been treated under the direction of the 

 State Live Stock Sanitary Board until they were cured. This work 

 has been carried on in Susquehanna county, with the co-operation 

 of Dr. E. E. Tower; in Montgomery county, with the co-operation 

 of Dr. E. Mayhew Michener, and in Bucks county, with the co-opera- 

 tion of Dr. W. H. Kidge. From the work that has been done by 

 investigators elsewhere and by the experience obtained by our own 

 investigations, it has been shown that the plan of treatment recom- 

 mended in the circular printed as an appendix to this report, is 

 thoroughly effective. 



The great central fact for herdsmen to remember is that in- 

 fectious abortions may be kept from spreading in a herd by treat- 

 ing every case as though it were infectious, and thus taking no 

 chances. It is not expensive to burn the aborted foetus and to dis- 

 infect the premises occupied by the aborting cows, nor is it expen- 

 sive to maintain this cow apart from the balance of the herd and to 

 treat her by intra-uterine and intra-vaginal injections until the 

 genital passages are well and the parts arp restored to their general 

 condition and are free from discharge. 



Pa7'turie7it Paresis^ or Milh^ Fever, of Cows.. — Tremendous ad- 

 vances have been made in recent years in the treatment of this 

 disease, which was formerly one of the most destructive and fatal 

 diseases of cows. Milk fever, for this is the name by which this 

 disease is commonlv known, was at one time the most dreaded of the 

 non-contagious diseases of cattle. This disease is one that selects 

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