GRANULAR VENEREAL DISEASE AND ABORTION IN CATTLE. 11 



HISTOLOGY. 



The histology of the disease has not been extensively studied. 

 Isepponi speaks of the nodular elevations as granuloma; Ostertag 

 views them as swellings of the lymph follicles normally present in 

 the vulvar mucosa, and Martens also regards them as swellings or 

 hypertrophy of normal papillary bodies. 



Thorns has investigated the histology of the malady most fully. 

 As a basis for his study of the normal vulvar mucosa he selected a 

 cow about 7 years old and a calf 10 weeks old. The normality of 

 the mucosa of these two animals may well be questioned. While in 

 Table 1 there has been recorded a total of 300 cows over 4 years 

 old in which nodules were not recognized, I would be wholly unwilling 

 to select one of these as sound. The examination was merely nega- 

 tive as to their presence, not positive as to their absence. Thorns 

 concludes that animals of any age may be infected, that with an 

 exudate bearing the diplococci and short streptococci the disease 

 may be induced experimentally in 16 hours by inoculation, that in 

 four or five days nodules appear which consist mostly of the hyper- 

 trophy of the existing papilla? in the vulvar mucosa, but are largely 

 the result of the formation of entirely new follicles by the accumula- 

 tion of round cells in clumps, and that after healing the follicles 

 atrophy gradually, but fail to return completely to their former size. 

 Hence he concludes recovery is not wholly dependent upon the 

 resumption by the follicles of their normal size. 



BACTERIOLOGY. 



The bacteriology of the granular venereal disease has been but 

 little studied, and the conclusions reached may well be modified by 

 future investigations. Ostertag concludes that the disease is due to 

 a diplococcus or short streptococcus, which he recognized in the 

 muco-purulent exudate in the vagina and vulva, and in one case in 

 the uterus. He introduced the organism into the vaginas of cows, 

 sheep, goats, swine, and horses, causing in cows a chronic purulent 

 vaginal catarrh, which agreed perfectly in its symptoms and course 

 with catarrhal vaginitis, and from the diseased exudates of these 

 animals pure cultures of the streptococcus were recovered. In 

 sheep, goats, swine, horses, guinea pigs, and rabbits the results were 

 negative. 



In investigating the granular venereal disease we need as a basis 

 an animal with unquestionably sound genital mucosa. This Oster- 

 tag believes he has secured. Details of the basis upon which he 

 declares them sound are wanting. So with the transmission experi- 

 ments of Ostertag. Were the animals to which he believed he 

 transmitted the affection actually and wholly free from the disease 



