16 BULLETIN" 106, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



investigators assert, while others deny, that it causes any, few, or 

 many losses, due to an extensive list of complications. 



Some there are who vehemently assert that no such disease exists 

 and hence can not cause losses. They believe the granules or nodules 

 to be normal structures, else, they say, they would not be so universal. 

 Such granules or nodules, however, are not ordinarily observed in the 

 vulvar mucosa of other animal species. They do not appear in the 

 vulvae of new-born heifer calves, and may not appear for months if 

 the calf is kept in isolation. After coition they multiply by leaps and 

 bounds. 



Some urge that the disease can be of no material importance because 

 it is so common and so few animals appear to suffer unfavorable con- 

 sequences. The same argument has been applied to tuberculosis of 

 cattle and glanders of horses. We have come now to know that a 

 very large percentage of each of these diseases goes unseen by the 

 clinician and are detected only by biologic search. We have yet 

 better analogies upon which tentative conclusions may be based. 

 We have pointed out the fact that the disease is largely venereal in char- 

 acter. Though quite generally transmitted by other means, as is to 

 some extent the case with all venereal affections, yet its intense 

 arousal is brought about chiefly if not solely by coition. 



In man and in each species of domestic animal there is one or more 

 venereal disease, and each and every one is of material consequence. 

 In woman, syphilis and gonorrhea are responsible for much abortion, 

 sterility, and chronic diseases of the ovaries, oviducts, and other 

 organs. In dourine in mares, aside from the high mortality, abor- 

 tion or sterility is practically constant and no viable foals are born. 

 There appears no good reason for assuming that the granular venereal 

 disease of cows should form any marked exception to the general rule 

 that a chronic venereal infection of the genital tract is a serious peril, 

 especially from the standpoint of reproduction in the affected animals. 



ABORTION. 



Among the various complications alleged to accompany the granu- 

 lar venereal disease, stoutly asserted by some and as vigorously de- 

 nied by others, is abortion. Here two views as yet unreconciled 

 clash — that of Bang and his supporters that abortion is due to the 

 abortion bacillus on the one hand, and that of Zschokke, Hess, and 

 others that it is largely due to the granular venereal disease. At the 

 outset it is well to bear in mind that the granular venereal disease and 

 abortion are essentially universal. We hear now and then of the so- 

 called breaking out of the granular venereal disease or of abortion 

 in a herd, by which is ordinarily meant, not that the breaking out is 

 the beginning of either malady, but simply that it has become so 



