CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 831 



the caviiy with iodine the same as in the soft tumors, or a twenty-five per 

 cent, solution of hydrochloric acid might be used for a few days instead. 

 When the disease seems to be under control stop the packing and dress the 

 wounds with a solution of carbolic acid — a tablespoonf ul to a pint of tepid 

 water, two or three times a day. 



Medicinal treatment consists in giving to each affected animal one dram 

 of iodide of potash three times a day in solution in soft feed till the effects 

 of the drug are visible in the production of slavering at the mouth, loss of 

 appetite or scurfiness of the skin, then stop it for a week or ten days and 

 repeat. This condition will develop so as to be seen usually in ten or 

 twenty days. A couple of months or so of this dosing will usually cure 

 all of those affected in the soft tissues. The above dose is proper for 

 a three year old steer weighing fourteen hundred pounds; smaller and 

 younger ones should get proportionate doses. As soon as an animal shows 

 signs of having the disease he should be isolated and kept there till cured 

 or destroyed. 



The meat of cattle affected with this disease should not be used for 

 food. 



X. Contagious Abortion of Cattle. 



This is a disease with which every cattle raiser and dairyman should 

 be acquainted, as it is liable to be introduced into his herd, and a failure 

 to recognize and deal with it intelligently may result in considerable loss. 

 Such loss occurs not only through the death of the offspring but through 

 a diminished milk production. 



Abortion, sometimes known as ''slinking," "casting," or "losing" the 

 calf, is the term given to the expulsion of the fetus at any time before 

 the completion of the full term of normal pregnancy. While it may be 

 produced in many ways, as by an injury, improper food or treatment, 

 etc., by far the greater number of cases is due to one of several germs and 

 are known as contagious abortions. Nocard in France and Bang in Den- 

 mark have found bacteria, and the Scottish commission found as many 

 as five separate kinds which produce the disease. In this country V. A. 

 Moore, of the New York Cornell Station, and F. D. Chester, formerly 

 of the Delaware Station, have found organisms differing somewhat in the 

 two States, but evidently of the same group with the colon bacillus. Dr. 

 James Law concludes that any micro-organism which can live in or on 

 the lining of the membrane of the womb, producing a catarrhal inflam- 

 mation, and which can be transferred from animal to animal without 

 losing its vitality or potency, is of necessity a cause of contagious abortion. 

 The disease is transmitted from one animal to another by contact, by 

 means of the discharge from the cow that has aborted, the afterbirth, 

 dead calf, and from buPs that have served cows affected with the disease. 



