Annual Report for 1914: of Boyal Veterinary/ College. 259 



dealing successfully with outbreaks of contagious abortion in 

 cows which had been opened up by the discovery of a new 

 method of diagnosis — viz., the agglutination test — and inti- 

 mating that the Royal Veterinary College was prepared to 

 advise and assist owners of herds in which the disease existed. 



The object in view in making this offer was to obtain the 

 means of testing on a large scale, and in the conditions of actual 

 practice, the value of a plan of dealing with outbreaks which 

 was based on laboratory experiments, and which had already 

 been tried with encouraging results in a few herds. Briefly 

 stated, the plan is — (1) to employ the agglutination test when- 

 ever a case of abortion occurs, in order to determine whether 

 the cow has been infected with contagious al)ortion or has 

 slipped her calf from some other cause ; and (2), when the 

 existence of contagious disease has thus been proved, to test 

 the entire stock in order to ascertain the extent to which the 

 infection has already spread. Common sense suggests that this 

 knowledge is essential before one can give intelligent advice 

 regarding the best method of dealing with an outbreak. 



The notice issued to members has brought a large number 

 of applications for advice and assistance, and has entailed a 

 great amount of work on the part of the Research Staff at the 

 College. Thus, during the past year 3,632 samples of blood 

 have been tested, and the animals from which these samples 

 were taken were distributed in 132 different herds. 



It will be obvious that the inquiry is being carried out on a 

 scale that will amply justify conclusions as to the value of this 

 method of dealing with the disease, but some time must still 

 elapse before the whole results can be collected and tabulated, 

 especially as it will probably not be safe to conclude that the 

 disease has been eradicated from any herd until nine months 

 or a year has elapsed since the last case of abortion. 



Already, however, the inquiry has proved that the plan of 

 testing, followed by elimination or strict isolation of the 

 reacting animals, can be relied upon to arrest an outbreak, 

 provided the owner has not neglected to seek advice as soon 

 as one or two cases of abortion have occurred. 



Unfortunately, as was to be expected, in a considerable 

 proportion of cases in which advice was sought it was found 

 that abortions had been occurring in the liei'd for months or 

 even years, and in nearlj- all such cases the general test of the 

 herd has revealed such a large proportion of infected animals 

 as to make eradication impossible either by disposing of these 

 or by isolating them. 



It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the difficulty of 

 dealing with an outbreak increases with every day during 

 which an infected animal remains in the herd, and that it is 



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