3o6 Diseases of the Genital Organs 



genital tract. It is not known that these lesions in the geni- 

 tal tract are the sole or primary lesions of the disease. Va- 

 rious writers have asserted that these lesions have been dis- 

 covered in the uterine mucosa, and that the streptococci have 

 even been found in the ovaries. Streptococci are common in 

 the genital tracts of animals. The streptococcus which Os- 

 tertag has described does not differ materially, so far as 

 may be learned from his description, either in staining or in 

 cultural behavior, from other streptococci. On the whole, 

 therefore, the evidence relating to the biology wants some 

 of the essentials for arriving at a safe conclusion. When 

 the nodules increase they do so numerically, and when first 

 observed are of full size. When they disappear, they van- 

 ish numerically, but those which remain are essentially as 

 large as ever. 



The Relationship of the Nodular Venereal Disease to 

 Sterility and Abortion. Isepponi, Zschokke, Hess, and many 

 others were thoroughly convinced that this infection was 

 the cause of abortion, sterility, and other diseases of the 

 genital organs of cows. The evidence which they submit is 

 clinical, and in large measure circumstantial. When abor- 

 tion breaks out in a serious form, veterinarians, seeking for 

 an explanation, tend always to search for any evidence 

 which may offer an acceptable hypothesis for the occurrence 

 of the disaster. If the nodular venereal disease has been 

 accepted at a given time or in a given country as the re- 

 sponsible cause of abortion and allied disasters, the exam- 

 iner is very liable to look closely for these lesions, and when- 

 ever he does so he is certain to find them. He then as- 

 sumes that the cause of the disaster is revealed, and does 

 not investigate carefully the character of his evidence. In 

 fact, the definition of nodular venereal disease, as given by 

 various observers, differs widely. As a general rule the 

 diagnosis is not based upon the appearance of nodules in 

 the vulvar mucosa, but rather upon the number of nodules 

 and their clinical appearance. Hess, for example, says that 

 an animal has the nodular venereal disease when there is a 

 large number of the nodules present in the vulvar mucosa 



