686 Diseases of the Genital Organs 



remedy. Several reasons have been suggested. In many 

 cases the failure is unquestionably due to a blind reliance 

 upon serum without the basic act of withdrawing all food 

 and attending to other essential features, such as the pre- 

 vention of the swallowing of rubbish. Numerous writers 

 have contended that the obstinacy in some outbreaks is over- 

 powering because the infection is specifically different from 

 the prevailing cause of dysentery, pneumonia, or arthritis, 

 the bacteria of which have been used in building up the cura- 

 tive serum. To prevent this, some biologic houses have as- 

 sembled a great medley of bacteria, in order to produce a 

 serum which may quite certainly contain the one specific 

 cause in any outbreak. It is the continuation of the old 

 "shotgun" therapy based upon the philosophy that, if the 

 charge scatters sufficiently, some one shot will hit the mark. 

 To be perfectly frank in the matter, it has not been shown 

 that the building up of the resistance of the horse, by in- 

 jecting various bacteria before drawing the serum, has ex- 

 erted the least effect upon the value of the serum. Accord- 

 ing to my observations, calf scours serum acts specifically 

 and highly beneficially in the cases under consideration, but 

 no control experiments have been made and it is not known 

 that serum from an ordinary horse not treated by artificial 

 inoculation with bacteria is not just as potent and valuable 

 as the preparations upon the market. Indeed some recent 

 researches by my colleague, Carpenter, appear to indicate 

 that this is true. It is not improbable also that the serum 

 or blood from the dam of the calf is a potent agent, possibly 

 the best substance available. This too has been tried by 

 Carpenter with promising results. It has not been shown 

 that any organism used by the various producers of biologies 

 in immunizing horses for the production of calf scours serum 

 has any basic relation to calf dysentery or pneumonia. The 

 makers of serum have largely depended, for making serum, 

 upon colon organisms obtained from calves dead of dysen- 

 tery or pneumonia, instead of going where they clearly 

 should go, to the fetus, for their ferment. The whole 

 scheme of serologic handling of calf dysentery and pneu- 



