126 THE BREEDING OF ANIMALS 



The problem of treating the bull and cows known to 

 be infected is quite distinct from the building up of a 

 clean herd. Fortunately this infection is not transmitted 

 by heredity and is not necessarily spread from mother 

 to offspring by direct infection. It is, therefore, possible 

 for a breeder to retain in the young animals from the 

 infected herd the best products of his skill and experi- 

 ence. When a cow from the infected herd aborts, all 

 tissues expelled from the uterus should be promptly 

 burned and the stall thoroughly disinfected by a generous 

 use of lime. The vagina of the cow should be disinfected 

 with the solution described on p. 125. The aborting 

 cow should be permitted to rest at least six months before 

 breeding again. The prevention of abortion in a cow 

 already pregnant has been successfully accomplished in a 

 number of instances by internal applications of carbolic 

 acid. Taylor's 1 successful experiments in preventing 

 impending abortion are worthy of note. A description 

 of the treatment of one cow is typical and will serve as 

 an example of the methods which were generally successful. 

 A grade cow four years old that had aborted the previous 

 year and was known to be infected with granular vaginitis 

 was given the following treatment: At the beginning 

 of the fourth month of the period of gestation she was 

 given 200 cubic centimeters of a four per cent solution 

 of carbolic acid in her feed. The dose was increased to 

 250 cubic centimeters the fifth month and to 300, 350 and 

 400 cubic centimeters for the sixth, seventh and eighth 

 months respectively. This cow dropped a strong healthy 

 calf at the end of the normal period of gestation. A sum- 

 mary of the results in one herd treated by Taylor shows 



1 Taylor, Montana Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 90, 

 1912. 



