SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 635 



herd subsequently served by him abort in considerable numbers, con- 

 tagion may be safely inferred. Mere living in the same pasture or build- 

 ing does not convey the infection. Cows brought into the aborting herd 

 in advanced pregnancy carry their calves to the full time. But cows 

 served by the infected bull, or that have had the infection conveyed by 

 the tongue or tail of other animals, or by their own, or that have had the 

 external genitals brought in contact with wall, fence, rubbing post, litter, 

 or floor previously soiled by the mfeoted animals, will be liable to suffer. 

 The Scottish abortion committee found that when healthy, pregnant cows 

 merely stood with or near aborting cows they escaped, but when a piece 

 of cotton wool loged for twenty minutes in the vagina of the aborting 

 cow afterwards inserted into the vagina of a healthy pregnant cow 

 or sheep, these latter invariably aborted within a month. So 

 Roloff relates that in two large stables at Erfurt, without any direct inter- 

 communication, but filled with cows fed and managed in precisely the 

 same way, abortion prevailed for years in the one, while not a single case 

 occurred in the other. Galtier finds that the virus from the aborting 

 cow causes abortions in the sow, ewe, goat, rabbit, and guinea pig, and 

 that if it has been intensified by passing through either of the two last- 

 named animals it will affect also the mare, bitch, and cat. 



It does not appear that it is always the same organism which causes 

 contagious abortion. In France, Nocard found in the aborting mem- 

 branes and the mucous membrane cocci, or globular boaies, singly or in 

 chains, and a very delicate rod-shaped organism by which the disease was 

 propagated and which survived in the womb through the interval between 

 successive pregnancies. The Scottish commission found as many as five 

 separate kinds of bacteria. Bang, in Denmark, found a very delicate rod- 

 shaped organism showing its most active growth at two different depths 

 in nutrient gelatin, and which produced abortion in twenty-one days 

 when inoculated on the susceptible pregnant cow. In America, Chestei, 

 of Delaware, and Moore, of New York, constantly found organisms differ- 

 ing somewhat in the two States, but evidently of the same group with 

 the colon germ {Bacillus coli communis). These were never found in the 

 healthy pregnant womb, but in the cow that had aborted they continued 

 to live in that organ for many months after the loss of the fetus. 



We may reasonably conclude than any microorganism which can live 

 in or on the lining membrane of the womb producing a catarrhal inflam- 

 mation, and which can be transferred from animal to animal without 

 losing its vitality or potency, is of necessity a cause of contagious abor- 

 tion. As viewed, therefore, from the particular germ that may be pres- 

 ent, we must recognize not one from only of contagious abortion, but sev- 

 eral, each due to its own infecting germ, and each differing from others 

 in minor particulars, like duration of Incubation, infection of the general 

 system, and the like. In Europe the germs discovered seem to affect the 

 general system much more than do those found in America. Bang's 

 germ caused abortion in twenty-one days; the New York germ, inocu- 

 lated at service, often falls to cause abortion before the fifth or seventh 

 month. 



