GRANULAR VENEREAL DISEASE AND ABORTION IN CATTLE. 11 
HISTOLOGY. 
The histology of the disease has not been extensively studied. 
Isepponi speaks of the nodular elevations as granuloma; Ostertag 
views them as swellings of the lymph follicles normally present in 
the vulvar mucosa, and Martens also regards them as swellings or 
hypertrophy of normal papillary bodies. 
Thorns has investigated the histology of the malady most fully. 
As a basis for his study of the normal vulvar mucosa he selected a 
cow about 7 years old and a calf 10 weeks old. The normality of 
the mucosa of these two animals may well be questioned. While in 
Table 1 there has been recorded a total of 300 cows over 4 years 
old in which nodules were not recognized, I would be wholly unwilling 
to select one of these as sound. The examination was merely nega- 
tive as to their presence, not positive as to their absence. Thorns 
concludes that animals of any age may be infected, that with an 
exudate bearing the diplococci and short streptococci the disease 
may be induced experimentally in 16 hours by inoculation, that in 
four or live days nodules appear which consist mostly of the hyper- 
trophy of the existing papillae in the vulvar mucosa, but are largely 
the result of the formation of entirely new follicles by the accumula- 
tion of round cells in clumps, and that after healing the follicles 
atrophy gradually, but fail to return completely to their former size. 
Hence he concludes recovery is not wholly dependent upon the 
resumption by the follicles of their normal size. 
BACTERIOLOGY. 
The bacteriology of the granular venereal disease has been but 
little studied, and the conclusions reached may well be modified by 
future investigations. Ostertag concludes that the disease is due to 
a diplococcus or short streptococcus, which he recognized in the 
muco-purulent exudate in the vagina and vulva, and in one case in 
the uterus. He introduced the organism into the vaginae of cows, 
sheep, goats, swine, and horses, causing in cows a chronic purulent 
vaginal catarrh, which agreed perfectly in its symptoms and course 
with catarrhal vaginitis, and from the diseased exudates of these 
animals pure cultures of the streptococcus were recovered. In 
sheep, goats, swine, horses, guinea pigs, and rabbits the results were 
negative. 
In investigating the granular venereal disease we need as a basis 
an animal with unquestionably sound genital mucosa. This Oster- 
tag believes he has secured. Details of the basis upon which he 
declares them sound are wanting. So with the transmission experi- 
ments of Ostertag. Were the animals to which he believed he 
transmitted the affection actually and wholly free from the disease 
