Congenital Infections of Calves 66 1 



willing or unable to stand. In other cases the affected joints 

 are neither greatly swollen nor very painful. Several or all 

 limbs may be involved, causing the calf to walk slowly and 

 cautiously without marked lameness in any one limb. As 

 in pneumonia, so in arthritis, lesions are found upon au- 

 topsy which had not been clinically recognizable. 



Pyemic abscesses, which occur somewhat rarely in all or- 

 gans and tissues of the body, have the same significance as 

 arthritis. Occasionally a pyemic abscess occurs in the 

 spinal canal, causing a gradual and finally complete paraly- 

 sis. In other instances the pyemic abscess is inter-articular 

 in the spinal column and eventually breaks into the spinal 

 canal, inducing sudden and complete paralysis suggesting 

 fracture of the spinal column. Other evidences of disease 

 appear which are not readily assignable to a logical place in 

 the course of the basic infection. Prominent among these 

 are ulcers and abscesses in the lips and cheeks. These ag- 

 gravate exceedingly the basic malady. The lesions are ap- 

 parently due to a secondary invader (B. necrophorus?) for 

 which the basic infection has prepared a vulnerable field. 

 Rachitic-like enlargements of the bones are not rare, but 

 their exact relation to the basic invasion is not understood. 



When a degree of dysentery, pneumonia or arthritis is 

 present which clearly imperils the life of the patient, the 

 presence of disease is not disputed, but the results of vary- 

 ing degrees of infection in new-born calves offer such in- 

 finite gradations that it is impossible for a majority of ob- 

 servers to agree upon a clear line of demarcation between 

 health and disease. So far as known, the bacteria which 

 cause dysentery, pneumonia, septicemia, and pyemia in 

 young calves exist in the bodies of essentially all cattle, and 

 disease or health is determined, not by the presence or ab- 

 sence of given bacteria, but by the ratio of bacterial force 

 to the resistance of the patient. A healthy new-born calf 

 has lustrous hair, its body is plump and graceful, its eye 

 bright, its spirits gay, and its body functions are promptly 

 and evenly performed. The bowels promptly expel the me- 

 conium, which, as it escapes from the anus, does not adhere 



