310 Diseases of the Genital Organs 



ever may be the final decision as to the significance of the 

 nodular venereal disease, these definite injuries should be 

 recognized and preventive or ameliorative measures applied. 



The prognosis of the nodular venereal disease is good. It 

 can not be definitely cured by any known means, but it may 

 be controlled and its power for harm mitigated. It is im- 

 practicable at present to prevent it wholly, but the proper 

 handling of new-born calves does, for all practical purposes, 

 render it harmless so far as now known. The handling of 

 the nodular venereal disease is based upon application of 

 adequate measures for the healthy rearing of calves and for 

 sex hygiene in adults. 



Considering the nodular venereal disease as one which at- 

 tacks the new-born calf and continues throughout the ani- 

 mal's life, the most fundamental necessity is to grow the 

 calf so that the infection will not develop in a serious form. 

 This can be done only by strict attention to the feeding and 

 other hygienic questions, which will be more thoroughly 

 discussed in Section 3 of Part III, under "Congenital In- 

 fections of Calves." Here the invasion may be controlled 

 in such a manner that it tends to protect the animal against 

 the more severe type of the disease during its adult life. 



The disease is so highly infectious, however, that the ul- 

 timate control must include proper sex hygiene in the adult 

 of each sex. In the bull the handling of the nodular vene- 

 real disease resolves itself into the control of balanitis, or 

 balano-posthitis. Here handling should be preventive or 

 controlling rather than curative. It is just as necessary to 

 control the disease from the standpoint of secondary as from 

 that of the primary disease itself. If the disease is per- 

 mitted to acquire great intensity, so that the summits of 

 the nodules become denuded of their epithelium, a gateway 

 for various infections is opened, imperiling the sex health 

 of the animal. The breeding bull should always be viewed 

 from the standpoint of a male which is expected to copulate 

 with an indefinite number of females, each of which, since 

 she may bear infections within her genital tract, is a poten- 

 tial danger for the male. He in (urn. after such exposure, 

 carries an equal peril for the female. 



