- 404 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1898. 
Tick Fever, 
PREVENTIVE INOCULATION OF BULLS FOR TICK BKEVER. 
Report sy J. C. POUND, 
Director of Stock Institute. 
EXPERIMENT AT RATHDOWNEY. 
In accordance with a recommendation of Mr. W. Collins, I visited Rath- 
downey, in the Logan district, on the 20th August, 1897, and inoculated 
85 bulls with blood from No. 18 steer, which was inoculated five months 
previously at Mundoolun from one of the original Inkerman steers. The bulls 
were turned into a good paddock in which there was a plentiful supply of 
grass, fresh water, and shady trees, and were never allowed to be disturbed in 
any way whatever. No deaths resulted, and the stockman in charge reported 
that none of the animals showed any apparent outward signs of sickness. 
Towards the end of October, two months afterwards, all of these bulls were 
‘inoculated a second time with 5 c.c. of defibrinated blood taken from the 
Inkerman steer, and, as on the previous occasion, the animals were well cared 
for ; consequently none died, and none were reported as being sick. 7 
Instead of sending these bulls away into a grossly tick-infested district to © 
test the efficacy of the inoculation, it was decided that they should all remain 
at Rathdowney for several months, and then be injected with a fairly large 
quantity of virulent blood from a case (produced artificially) of tick fever. To 
make the test still more conclusive, 1 reeommended to Mr. Collins that 10 
healthy steers, as controls, should be inoculated at the same time with the 
same virulent blood, which was accordingly agreed to. In order to obtain 
virulent blood for this test experiment, the following programme was carried 
out :—On the 8rd February, Mr. Geo. Collins inoculated 5 healthy steers, each 
receiving 8 c.c. of blood taken from the Inkerman steer, and from the 14th to 
the 21st February all had their temperatures taken regularly night and 
morning. The maximum temperatures of these 5 animals after inoculation 
were as follow :— 
S00) Maximum Days after 
ae Temperature, Inoculation, 
1 oie 104°7 ox: 12 
*2 oop 106°3 a 17 
3 nh 105°8 tet 17 
4 ont 1046 en 11 
5 BS 104°5 : 11 
No. 2 animal, with a temperature of 1063 F., although not exhibiting 
very prominent outward signs of sickness, was the one selected to draw blood 
from with which to inoculate the bulls and control steers, and which operation 
