644 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



apparently normal cow, that these antibodies are often dne to a local 

 Bad. abortus infection, that one or more quarters may show the anti- 

 bodies while the others are negative, and tliat the reaction may spread 

 from quarter to quarter, or may gradually die out. 



TECIINIC EMPLOYED, 



The technic employed for the complement fixation and agglutination 

 tests was the same as described in Part I of this paper. That Bad. 

 abortus antibodies are often present in milk in great concentration has 

 been shown in the data tabulated in Part T of tliis paper. 



The fact that antibodies are often present in milk leads us to suspect 

 that the cases in which tlie appearance of antibodies in the blood of 

 children have been looked upon as indicating infection, by Bad. abortus, 

 are more probably due to an absorption of antibodies from the milk in 

 the intestine and a consequent passive immunity. 



An examination has been made of the sera of a number of persons 

 drinking raw milk, pasteurized milk, and no milk, by the complement 

 fixation and agglutination tests using Bact. abortus as antigen. The 

 result of this work is shown in Table I. 



TABLE I.— SHOWING THE PRESENCE OF ANTIBODIES FOR BACT. ABORTUS IN THE 



BLOOD OF ADULTS. 



In this table it is seen that of the six persons who had been drinking 

 raw milk or cream, previous to the test, three (or 50 per cent) gave a 

 reaction to the complement fixation and agglutination tests. Of the 

 four persons drinking pasteurized milk, one gave a reaction to the com- 

 plement fixation test only. All four who had been drinking no milk 

 gave negative reactions. 



Mrs. D., whose blood reacted to the test, had been drinking milk from 

 Cow 71. Milk from one quarter of this cow's udder contained the Bad. 

 abortus antibodies as shown in Table No. II, Part I. 



Mr. A., of Table I, whose blood gave a strong reaction when this test 

 was made, had been drinking about a pint of raw cream daily during 

 the summer. 



The findings of other investigators and the results shown in Table I 



