BUKEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 387 



cutaneous tuberculin test must again be indorsed as the most reliable. 

 The commercial tuberculin tested in the course of the year was found 

 to be satisfactory. 



There is great need that active work should be done to discover a 

 simpler reliable method for testing the diagnostic potency of tuber- 

 culin than we now have. 



The subject of the disinfection of stables that have been occupied 

 by tuberculous cattle has received some attention, and it is hoped 

 from the results already obtained that it will be possible in time to 

 recommend a much simpler, safer, and less expensive process than is 

 now in use. 



TEXAS FEVER. 



About a year ago information was received that a new, practically 

 specific treatment for Texas fever had been discovered by one of the 

 best recognized authorities on the disease in the country. The treat- 

 ment consists of the injection of a 1 per cent solution in water of 

 " quinin urea and bimuriate " into the abdominal cavities of animals 

 affected with Texas fever, 1 cubic centimeter of the solution per pound 

 weight of animal. 



The treatment was tested on three losts of eight animals each. In 

 each lot four animals were treated and four held as checks or con- 

 trols. All three tests proved the treatment to be worthless. In the 

 first test quinin urea and bimuriate manufactured in America was 

 used, and in the second and third tests quinin urea and bimuriate 

 manufactured at Brunswick, Germany, as we found by writing to 

 the author of the treatment that he had used the German preparation 

 in his work. In the first test no animals died, but the disease was just 

 as severe and lasted just as long in the treated as in the untreated 

 cattle. In the second test two treated and two untreated animals died, 

 and the remaining four (two treated and two untreated) were equally 

 slow in regaining health. And in the third test three out of four 

 treated and only one out of four untreated cattle died. The sur- 

 viving treated animal is in no better condition than the three sur- 

 viving untreated animals. 



Post-mortem examination of the treated animals that died proved 

 that the solution of quinin urea and bimuriate had in all cases actu- 

 ally entered the abdominal cavity. This statement is made because 

 the author of the treatment in a letter received from him especially 

 referred to one instance in which the treatment was found to be 

 useless and in which it was afterwards discovered that the solution 

 had been injected into the abdominal wall and not into the abdominal 

 cavity. 



Two cattle affected with Texas fever, in addition to the work on 

 treatment above summarized, were given intravenous injections of a 

 solution of quinin urea and bimuriate. This test was made because it 

 provided for a very rapid distribution of the drug throughout the 

 entire body, and because failure to obtain favorable action from the 

 drug when injected subcutaneously or intramuscularly was charged 

 by the author of the intra-abdominal treatment to slowness of absorp- 

 tion. Although the intravenous injected animals remained alive, the 

 course of the disease in their case does not give us reasons for indors- 

 ing the treatment they received. 



