44 JOHNE^S DISEASE 



only lack of opportunity from financial reasons which 

 has prevented our experimenting on these lines. If 

 the disease were detected in an early stage with the 

 diagnostic vaccine, such treatment might be both 

 useful and of practical value in the case of pedigree 

 bulls. 



Prophylaxis. — In the present state of our knowledge 

 the question of prophylaxis is of much greater impor- 

 tance than that of treatment. As soon as the diseased 

 animals are- removed from the farm, all buildings, etc., 

 in which they have been housed should be effectively 

 disinfected. Where possible, the floor of the cowshed 

 should be scraped, and if the floor is an earthen one, 

 the scrapings should be burnt. Cement floors should 

 be washed with hot solutions of some reliable disinfec- 

 tant, and probably roughening the old floor and the 

 application of a fresh layer of cement would be a good 

 procedure, if combined with several white-washings of 

 the rest of the building and its fixtures with lime mixed 

 with carbolic acid, etc. All dung, litter, stale fodder, 

 etc., from the neighbourhood of affected animals should 

 be burnt or ploughed in on land used for root crops, 

 though the latter is not free from all risk. Scrapers, 

 milking-stools, milkers' coats and aprons, spans, neck 

 chains (or ropes), buckets, and any other utensils in 

 the byre or milking shed should be treated with dis- 

 infectants or thrown away, and new articles substituted. 



When affected animals have been isolated in a 

 particular field, or where a field is known to be badly 

 contaminated, it might be advisable to plough it up 

 and bare fallow it during the summer, and then use 

 it for growing some crop that will not be given to cattle 

 or sheep. It is improbable that the disease can affect 

 pigs, and as only one doubtful case has been recorded 

 in the horse, these animals are not likely to contract 



