WHITE SCOUR 237 



too highly fed, or if the food is impure or inferior to such a 

 degree that the system becomes fevered, so that an ab- 

 normally large proportion of albumen is present in the milk. 

 Excess of albumen, inducing convulsions, often occurs in calves 

 fed on undiluted Jersey cows' milk. The albumen precipitates 

 in the calfs stomach, and is made hard and indigestible by 

 the acidity which develops. The irritation throughout the 

 alimentary canal, no doubt intensified by some alkaloid 

 poisoning, induces death within a few hours. Treatment must 

 be directed towards the restoration of the normal condition 

 of the cow, and while this is progressing, to treating the milk so 

 that the excess of albuminoids and other deleterious matters is 

 rendered innocuous. This may be to some extent accom- 

 plished by a local but successful method of "burning the 

 milk " by stirring each pailful with a red-hot bar of iron. 



The contagious form of white scour is an extremely fatal 

 disorder among calves. It appears, generally, when large 

 numbers are crowded together under insanitary conditions 

 associated with faulty feeding. Once established, it is difficult 

 to eradicate. The immediate isolation of affected cases and 

 stringent disinfection is imperative. Professor Nocard was 

 employed by the Board of Agriculture for Ireland to investi- 

 gate the disease. 1 He discovered that it was due to the 

 presence of a microbe which got into the calves' blood 

 circulation by the navel, but which might be present in large 

 numbers in milk-fed calves without doing injury. When the 

 bacteria were artificially cultivated outside the body of the 

 animal and healthy calves inoculated, white scour was invari- 

 ably produced and death occurred. The navels of calves which 

 died of the disease in the natural way were found to be diseased. 

 He believed that the microbes "are present in the genital 

 passage of the cow, on dirty straw or hay, and on the floors 

 of cow-houses and calf-houses, and in fact on everything 

 about a farm where ' white scour ' is prevalent." Calves that 

 survive an attack of white scour are very liable to die of a 

 lung disease which is a frequent sequel to it. The preventive 

 methods recommended are as follows : Thoroughly dis- 

 infect the cow by a warm 2 p.c. solution of lysol; 2 tie the 



1 See the Board's leaflets on White Scour in Calves, Nos. 1 1 and I I(A). 



2 Carbolic acid, 5 per cent., may be substituted for lysol, and iodoform 

 for iodine. 



