482 Prevention of Epizootic Abortion in Cattle, [sept., 



serious, both in its aggregate effects and in the loss which it 

 frequently occasions to individual stock-owners, to make it 

 well worth while to oppose it by any reasonable measures of 

 prevention that can be devised. 



The disease has already established a very serious hold on 

 the cattle stock in this country, and it is constantly being 

 spread to new herds by the sale of infected cows. In this 

 dispersal of the seeds of the disease it is possible that the 

 principal part is played by cows that change hands soon 

 after they have aborted, but a share in the spread of the 

 disease, and possibly even the larger share, must be laid to 

 the charge of cows that are infected but still pregnant and 

 apparently healthy at the time when they are sold and 

 introduced into healthy herds. 



The possible methods by which the disease might be com- 

 bated fall under two heads : — (1) private effort, and (2) public 

 control. 



Private Effort. — It is obvious that in the ordinary circum- 

 stances in which the cattle trade of this country is conducted, 

 breeding or milking herds must as a rule be recruited by 

 the purchase of cows or heifers without any real assurance 

 that they have not been exposed to the risk of contagion, 

 and in the absence of such an assurance the purchaser has 

 no safeguard, since infected animals display no symptom by 

 which their dangerous character can be recognised. Broadly 

 speaking, therefore, private effort alone is foredoomed to 

 failure as a means of preventing the spread of epizootic 

 abortion. The Committee say that they cannot accept the 

 suggestion that the existing state of affairs would be sensibly 

 ameliorated if farmers were better informed regarding the 

 pathology of the disease. They consider that the contagious 

 nature of the disease is now very generally known to stock- 

 owners, and evidence of this is furnished by the too common 

 practice of immediately selling a cow that has aborted, and 

 of exposing her for sale together with a calf falsely repre- 

 sented to be her own. 



Public Control. — With regard to the need for public con- 

 trol, the Committee observe that public or State intervention 

 with a view to prevention of a contagious disease appears to 

 be justified when — • 



