Contagious Abortion 93 



The annual loss from contagious abortion is placed at more than 

 (S50,000,000) fifty million dollars. 



Veterinarians of experiment stations and others with broad ideals 

 have been laboring very diligently on this disease. Generally the cattle 

 ovvTier does not want it known his herd is effected and often closes them out 

 at public sale and thus the innocent purchaser often takes the disease 

 into a well herd. To some extent this secrecy has really kept the veter- 

 inarians of the state from knowing the prevalence of this disease. The 

 disease is caused by a germ found by Bang in 1895. Oftentimes a 

 neighbor can not get his cow to conceive to his bull and gets a neighbor's 

 bull to serve her. If she has contagious abortion it may be carried by 

 the bull to the next few cows he serves. The last statement is of im- 

 portance and should be carefully read by all. There is much less likely 

 hood of a bull carrying the disease from an infected cow to a well one if 

 his sheath is washed several times after serving an effected cow. This can 

 be done with a bulb syringe, wash sevcjral times well up under the sheath. 

 A cow may develop this disease by eating food having mucous on it from 

 an effected cow. Blood may be drawn out of the juglar vein by tieing 

 a string around the neck. In front of this string the vein xan be felt. 

 Puncture it with a hollow needle and run the blood in a clean narrow long 

 bottle. Keep upright at least 4 hours and send to the experiment station 

 and they can determine whether contagious abortion or some other form ex- 

 ists. A higher per cent of cows react than bulls, hence it is generally 

 supposed that the bull carries the disease chiefly in a mechanical way 

 that is the infection is left on his organs from an effected cow and 

 thereby transmitted to the well ones of the herd. 



Do not sell effected cows if they are of any value. In a very high 

 per cent of the cases if a cow is properly cleaned a few times with 

 antiseptic solution after the afterbirth is removed they will bring a nor- 

 mal calf the following year. That is to say a cow develops of her own 

 accord an immunity against the disease; yet there have been some people 

 who have induced the farmers to believe the medicine they use will ward 

 off the following attacks when the cow herself develops the immunity. 

 To prove this statement ask the man who has refused to sell his abortive 

 cows and see if he doesn't tell you a high per cent of his cows produced 

 normal calves the following year without treatment, provided tliey were 

 properly cleaned and conceived when bred. 



The calves when born normal from an abortive mother react to the 

 disease for only a few weeks after birth. 



