82 ROBEET GRAHAM AND HERMAN R. SCHWARZE 



strated under natural conditions comparable to field tests with 

 horses (Rusk and Grindley) wherein the value of antitoxin was 

 apparently observed. 



Dr. I. B. Boughton of the Animal Pathology Division, Uni- 

 versity of Illinois, with the consent of the owner treated 43 

 cattle of the original herd with antitoxin, type B. Amounts 

 varying from 30 to 50 cc. were injected subcutaneously into 

 each animal. A control or untreated animal was placed in the 

 herd with the 43 treated cattle. Following the injection of 

 serum the silage which had previously proven injurious to cattle, 

 and which upon examination proved to be contaminated with 

 B. hotulinus (type B) was fed in liberal amounts for sixty con- 

 secutive days, until the supply of silage was exhausted. No 

 symptoms of illness were noted in the treated animals and the 

 one untreated animal. 



The protective value of type B serum in these animals must 

 be discounted, in the opinion of the writers, for the reason that 

 a degree of immunity might have been developed by a previous 

 illness which had occurred in approximately one-half of the 

 animals of this herd and which in all probability was induced by 

 botulinus toxin in the silage. The control animal did not suc- 

 cumb or even display clinical symptoms of illness, and therefore 

 no precise and definite deductions can be drawn, yet the pro- 

 tective value of botulinus antitoxin in laboratory tests suggests 

 the possible value of this antitoxin in combating B. botulinus 

 intoxication in cattle, as well as the advisability of further tests 

 of this character in the control of natural outbreaks of this 

 disease in bovines.^ 



' As this manuscript is being prepared the importance of a polyvalent serum 

 in further trials is suggested by tire results of bacteriologic and immunologic 

 findings in two separate and distinct outbreaks of botulism in cattle occurring 

 near Paxton, Illinois, wherein A and B types of B. botulinus respectively were 

 encountered. 



During the feeding test, the owner advised that the silage in question had 

 been fed independently to an untreated cow not included in the experimental 

 group, with the result that the animal developed symptoms indistinguishable 

 from the illness originally observed in the herd. This animal had not previ- 

 ously received the silage and the owner's observations seem worthy of record. 



