4 JOHNE'S DISEASE 



cases appear to have shown distinct ulceration, and 

 were probably tubercular. 



In the Vetermarian for 183 1, Farrow and Cartwright 

 both mention diarrhoea and wasting in cattle, and 

 describe lesions which leave little doubt that the 

 disease existed in England over eighty years ago. 



B. Bang, of Copenhagen, states that, in 1881, Hansen, 

 a veterinary surgeon of Nysted, in the island of 

 Laaland, brought to his notice certain cattle in which 

 chronic diarrhoea was accompanied by a thickening of 

 the intestine. Later, Nielsen, on the same island, 

 observed a similar condition on a large estate in his 

 district. Bang made a post-mortem examination of 

 a cow from this estate, but in this particular case the 

 thickening was not very marked, and he was led to 

 ascribe the diarrhoea to the irritation caused by small 

 intestinal strongyles which were present. 



In 1895, Johne, professor in the veterinary school at 

 Dresden, and Frothingham, an American doctor work- 

 ing with him, first drew attention to the presence 

 of acid-fast bacilli in the thickened intestine. Harms, 

 a veterinary surgeon of Oldenburg, applied the tuber- 

 culin test to a six-year-old Oldenburg cow suffering 

 from diarrhoea which he suggested was tubercular 

 in origin. The injection of an ordinary dose of diag- 

 nostic tuberculin caused a rise of i '6° C. in the tempera- 

 ture of the animal, the maximum reached being 39*6° C. 

 As a result of this test the animal was slaughtered. 

 Neither in the lungs nor in the lymphatic glands was 

 any tubercular lesion demonstrable. The small intes- 

 tine and caecum were sent to Johne at Dresden. He 

 found the ileum to be thickened in the manner now 

 regarded as characteristic of Johne's disease, and on 

 staining portions of the bowel with carbol-fuchsin, 

 decolorizing with sulphuric acid, and counterstaining 



