Infective Gastro-enteritis , etc. 647 



■white scour, and of other milk secured with careful precautions 

 from cows in an infected stable, showed that both were clear of 

 the germ. Inoculations and culture experiments were equally- 

 fruitless. 



This does not exclude the probability of the contamination of 

 the milk, obtained under ordinary conditions, with the germ con- 

 tained in the floating barn dust, or that which was adherent to the 

 teat and udder. 



Another suggestion is that the infection is derived from the in- 

 fected womb prior to birth, but as Nocard justly says, if this 

 were so, abortions would be much more prevalent, as the rapidly 

 fatal issue of the disease would determine the prompt death of the 

 foetus and its expulsion. The coincidence of abortion and white 

 scour in a herd is not uncommon, and in such cases intrauterine 

 infection of the fcetus is not improbable, but in the great major- 

 ity of cases no such coincidence exists. 



We are thus thrown back on infection through the raw surface 

 of the ruptured umbilical cord, as the rule in such cases. It may 

 be that this has come from the vagina or vulva, but in the great 

 majority of cases it is manifestly derived from the infecting 

 bowel dejections and the dust caused by their desiccation. The 

 extraordinarily rapid progress and fatal result of the acute 

 disease, and the early abundance of the germ in the blood and 

 liver, suggest that the microbe traverses the umbilical vein to the 

 liver, and finding a congenial home in the blood is quickly dis- 

 tributed through the entire body. 



Prevention must be based on the destruction and exclusion of 

 the microbe. 



A thorough disinfection of the stable with mercuric chloride 

 has not given us uniformly satisfactory results, even when the 

 building has been kept apparently almost immaculately clean. 

 This argues a renewed infection through the faeces of the cows, 

 yet it is the rule that the removal of the cow to a new or unused 

 stable a few days before calving will usually secure the im- 

 munity of the calf. This method is however open to the ob- 

 jection that the removal to such calving stable of a succession of 

 cows coming from infected premises soon introduces the infection 

 and renders it as dangerous as the place they have left. To carry 

 out such a plan therefore a number of new stables or sheds must 



