114 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 18, 1912 



ABORTION IN CATTLE. 



By A. T. Peters, Springfield, III 



Meeting called to order by the President at i 130 P. M. 



President : We have two good talks on our program this 

 afternoon and we also have other business and we want to get 

 through. First, Dr. Peters will talk to you on the "Health of 

 the Dairy Cow." We want a discussion on this and the doctor 

 will be glad to make anything clear that you do not understand. 



Dr. Peters : 



This disease is by no means new. It has been reported for 

 many years and the theories regarding it are numerous. Some of 

 the best pathologists have busied themselves with the investigation 

 of this disease. From time to time commissions have been ap- 

 pointed by agricultural societies of the different countries to 

 study the breeding of live stock, and the infectiousness, cause, 

 and cure of this disease. Very little can be learned from the 

 early writers. In fact, the early literature on this subject has 

 a tendency towards superstition, in that it invariably attributes 

 the cause of epidemic abortion to sympathy, by saying that the 

 animal is endowed with the instinct to know when another ani- 

 mal is so affected and that the odor or some mysterious omen 

 would cause the animals to abort. The next theory was that 

 abortion was caused thru bad feed, especially moldy grain. 

 Investigation has shown that this is possible only in very rare 

 instances. It was not until about 1885 that Nocard, who had 

 then undertaken the investigation of this disease, dearly 



