410 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 926 



be of interest to very briefly review certain 

 recent publications dealing witb this disease. 

 This is particularly true just at present, as it 

 seems possible that this disease may have more 

 than a passing interest for human medicine. 

 From the standpoint of the veterinarian the 

 most important recent work is that from the 

 laboratory of Dr. C. O. Jensen in Copenhagen, 

 Denmark. This laboratory has devoted par- 

 ticular attention to the study of reliable meth- 

 ods of diagnosis. In September, 1909, Dr. 

 Holth° published a preliminary report, on the 

 use of agglutination and complement fixation 

 for determining the presence of this disease.^ 

 During the past year Sven Wall, working 

 under the direction of Drs. Jensen and Holth, 

 has published* the account of extensive tests 

 with these methods. Wall gives the details of 

 the examination of eleven hundred (1,097) 

 cows by the use of both methods. In many 

 cases the cows were tested every month for 

 from six to eight months. On the basis of 

 this work Wall concludes that it is entirely 

 possible by the combined use of these two 

 methods to determine which cows are infected, 

 or at least which ones have been infected 

 within the last six or eight months. It should 

 be noted here, however, that these serum tests 

 offer no opportunity to distinguish between 

 cows which have an active infection and those 

 which have acquired a measure of immunity. 

 Wall's work, however, indicates that the agglu- 

 tinins and immune bodies gradually disap- 

 pear. In from six months to a year after the 



° Holth, Half dan, ' ' Die Agglutination und die 

 Komplementbindimgsmetliode in der Diagnosis des 

 Seucbenliaften Verwerf ens der Kilhe, ' ' Berl. 

 Tierdrst. Woch., Bd. 25, pp. 686-688, 1909. 



' In tlie same year and independently, Mac- 

 Faydean and Stockman, of the English Abortion 

 Committee, also pointed out the possibility of using 

 these methods. 



■* Wall, Sven, ' ' Om Diagnostieering af inf eetoes 

 Kastning hos Kvaeget ved Agglutination og Koni- 

 plementbindung, " Maanedsslcrift f. Vyrlaeger 

 XXI., 1910. Also "Ueber die Festellung des 

 seuehenhaften Abortus beim Einde durch Agglu- 

 tination und Komplementbindung, " Zeit. f. In- 

 felctio7isJcr. usio. der Ha/ustiere, Bd. 10, 1911. 



infection, it is usually not possible to demon- 

 strate the presence of these bodies. 



The work of Holth and Wall has been cor- 

 roborated by a number of recent investigations 

 dealing with this disease. Professor Zwick, of 

 the Veterinary Division of the Eoyal Health 

 Bureau in Berlin, has contributed several re- 

 cent papers." He concludes that the methods 

 of agglutination and complement fixation offer 

 the proper means of diagnosis in this disease. 

 Zwick also concludes that infectious abortion 

 is much more widely spread among cattle than 

 is usually believed. He further believes that 

 infectious vaginitis is not a cause of abortion, 

 but that the abortion in such cases is due to a 

 separate infection with the Bang bacillus. 

 Another paper dealing with the diagnosis of 

 abortion is by Briill" from the veterinary 

 school in Wien. Briill, using the agglutina- 

 tion method alone, found that the serum of 

 cows which had aborted agglutinated the 

 abortion bacilli in dilutions from 1 to 64 up 

 to 1 to 16,000. The cows which had not 

 aborted and came from farms where there had 

 been no abortion never showed agglutination 

 in dilutions higher than 1 to 64 and usually 

 much lower. He concludes that this method 

 may be used with success. All cows showing 

 agglutination higher than 1 to 64 are believed 

 to have been infected. 



Still more recently MacFadyean and Stock- 

 man,' of the English Abortion Committee, 

 have thoroughly tested the agglutination 

 method. Of 535 steers, bulls and calves, 

 which a priori were assumed to be non-in- 

 fected, only nine showed agglutination in the 

 dilution of 1 to 50, four in the dilution of 

 1 to 100 and only one in the dilution of 1 



' Zwick, Central, f. Bahteriol. usw., Bd. 47, I. 

 Abt. Eef. (Beilage), 1910; Berl. Tierarzt. Woch., 

 Bd. 27, No. 6, pp. 111-112, February, 1911 ; Berl. 

 Tierarzt. Woch., Bd. 27, No. 52, pp. 965-969, 

 December, 1911. 



° Briill, Ziga, ' ' Beitrag zur Diagnostik des inf ek- 

 tiosen Abortus des Rindes, " Berl. Tierarzt. Woch., 

 Bd. 27, pp. 721-727, 1911. 



' MacFadj'ean, Sir John, and Stockman, Stewart, 

 ' ' The Agglutination Test in the Diagnosis of 

 Bovine Contagious Abortion, ' ' Jcnir. Comp. Path, 

 and Therap., Vol. XXV., pp. 22-38, March, 1912. 



