14 BULLETIN 106, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



as to what constitutes muco-purulent vaginal discharge, if the 

 amount is to decide the question. Unlike other females among our 

 domestic animals, there is a well-nigh universal vulvar discharge 

 of mucus or muco-pus from cattle, which varies quite as widely 

 as the number of nodules present. There is a somewhat close 

 harmony between the number of nodules present and the amount 

 of vaginal discharge. 



If it is held that the presence of nodules in the vulvar mucosa, 

 be they few or many and accompanied by little or much irritation 

 or discharge, indicates the granular venereal disease, the prognosis 

 as to complete cure of the disease is hopeless in the present state 

 of our knowledge. It attacks the heifer and calf ordinarily when 

 a few weeks old, and, except at times near to parturition or abortion 

 or under the influence of serious disease of the uterus (pyometra, etc.), 

 the disease is still clinically recognizable in most aged cows. No more 

 typically chronic malady is known, so that the terms acute, sub- 

 cute, and chronic are mere expressions of the vacillations in intensity 

 dependent upon a great variety of causes. 



From another standpoint we may regard the prognosis with some 

 favor. Viewing it as the possible cause of abortion and sterility, 

 we know that during its zenith, when the animal is from 2 to 5 years 

 of age, the economic losses from these causes are greatest, and that 

 after this period has passed the intensity of the disease abates, and 

 with it the losses from abortion and sterility decline. So also we 

 may regard as favorable the fact that we may repress the disease in 

 its intensity and at the same time may decrease the losses from 

 abortion and sterility. 



Ostertag relates that one 6-year-old cow recovered spontaneously 

 in 8 weeks, but he does not define what he means by recovery. 

 Thorns holds that after recovery from the disease the follicles 

 slowly decrease in size, but only in small degree, and then remain, 

 and emphasizes his opinion that the cure of the disease is not neces- 

 sarily followed by a disappearance of the nodules. Hess (in a personal 

 communication) holds that when the redness and swelling of the 

 vagina and the muco-purulent discharge therefrom have abated the 

 disease is cured ; that is, it is no longer present, sterility fails, abortion 

 does not occur. 



When necrotic or other tissues become encapsuled, when inorganic 

 salts are deposited in the tissues, when dense sclerotic tissues have 

 formed as a result of disease, and in many other cases, it is readily 

 understood that the effects of the disease may persist indefinitely 

 after the cessation of the malady. In the granular venereal disease 

 investigators agree that the nodules consist essentially of masses 

 of what appear to b© round or lymph cells, cells of a very primitive 



