APPLICATIONS OF VETERINARY RESEARCH. 
case the organism of contagious abortion is grown artificially and then killed, 
and a few million of the dead bodies suspended in sterile water are injected into 
the animal it is desired to immunize. After an interval of a week a second 
larger dose is given. Thereafter, if the method were successful, as judged by the 
results of similar vaccinations against other diseases, an effective immunity 
might be expected. Unfortunately this method has not proved effective in 
materially reducing the chances of abortion. 
Because of this failure, McFadyean and Stockman, in England, have advised 
the use of living cultures of the abortion bacillus. The procedure is to adminis- 
ter a large dose of a living broth culture to a cow about four months before it 
is intended that pregnancy shall commence. It is claimed that by this method 
a very considerable reduction in the liability to abortion is effected. What has 
not been stated, but a matter of supreme importance, is whether the 
living organisms which are inoculated into an animal are killed off as the 
immunity rises, or whether they remain alive and active. In the latter case 
if may well be that, whilst in the majority of cases they do not produce abor- 
tion, they still remain potent to infect other animals.. Experiments in the 
Melbourne University Veterinary School* have shown that animals experimen- 
tally infected by subcutaneous or intravenous ‘injections of living cultures of | 
the abortion bacillus will become infected, and will excrete the living organisms 
in the milk for months or years. Thus this method, even if proved to lessen 
the number of abortions, must be shown also to be free from the danger of 
producing carriers which will spread the infection. Only with widespread or 
almost universal vaccination of cows would such a method be warranted. 
Thus it- has to be confessed that no satisfactory method of prevention of 
infection with this disease has yet been discovered. Here is a field for research 
with a great economic reward for a successful harvest. 
And so a brief consideration of one prevalent animal disease has shown the 
valuable results achieved, and the further problems awaiting solution by scien- 
tific research. his is one line of work for the veterinary scientist, but there 
are many others, and many that are quite untried. Two conditions are neces- 
sary, viz., (1) a supply of capable workers, and (2) money and equipment. The 
former condition is in process of being fulfilled. The latter will be provided 
whenever the persons whose interest it is think it worth while. 
*Expts. by Seddon—not yet published. 
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