22
Anaphylaxis or Serum Sickness in Cattle
[VOL. XVIII, PART 1,
EXPERIMENTAL
Kumauni hill-bulls were used as experimental animals, except in a few cases where cross-bred
(Ayrshire-Sahiwal or Sindhi) calves were used. The products used were immune sera prepared
against anthrax, blackquarter, bovine pasteurellosis and rinderpest. Since most, if not all of these
products for veterinary use in India are prepared in buffaloes and since it was most likely that the
trouble arose from the use of heterologous serum, some use was also made of normal buffalo serum.
A few tests were also done with homologous serum. At the present time, aggressin is no longer
manufactured in the Institute for prevention of blackquarter. Use was therefore made of the
formalinized culture vaccine that is now issued; this is prepared in Noguchi medium in which is
incorporated buffalo muscle extract and rabbit kidney.
The products were injected at intervals varying from 7 to 60 days, while a few regular reactors
were tested after 13 months.
Incidence of anaphylaxis, symptoms
During the whole course of this work 260 hill-bulls and 12 cross-bred calves have been treated
subcutaneously with various biological products, mostly immune serum made from buffaloes. It is
highly improbable that these animals had been given any form of serum treatment previously. Of
these 62 (22.8 per cent) showed symptoms of serum sickness and one animal died. Further details
of this work are given below and the data are summarized in Table I. The incidence of reaction in
the various groups was variable, e.g. in one batch of 124 bulls about 20.0 per cent reacted, in another
group of 100 bulls 5.0 per cent reacted. The 62 cases could be divided into three groups according
to their severity as slight, mild and severe reactors. Thus in 31 (11.4 per cent) reactions were slight,
in 14 (5.1 per cent) they were mild, and in 17 (6.3 per cent) they were severe.
The symptoms produced varied considerably, from a few urticarial eruptions to severe shock.
Many of the reactions would have been overlooked had not a thorough examination been made. In
mild cases the only changes were urticarial swellings round the anus and on the perineum, slight
swelling of the anus, and watery discharge from the eyes. Severe cases are indicated by pronounced
oedematous swelling of the anus, perineum scrotum and sheath, of the head and neck or of the ears.
There may also be severe urticarial eruptions over the body, marked swelling at the site of inoculation,
restlessness, rapid and noisy dyspnoeic breathing, passage of dull-looking faeces which may be soft
and blood-tinged. The animal does not feed and lies down. There is discharge from the eyes and
nose, profuse salivation and sometimes muscular twitchings. The body temperature falls to 99°F.
Tympanites is liable to appear and may cause death unless relieved. The appearance of urine is
unchanged. The symptoms may develop as early as five minutes after subcutaneous inoculation
and in many cases within 20 to 60 minutes. In mild cases the symptoms disappeared within 2-3
hours and in severe cases within 24 hours.
One bull, which died, developed acute tympanites before death. Noticeable changes were
widespread cutaneous haemorrhages, oedema of the larynx, pharynx and base of the tongue with
yellowish gelatinous exudate. There was some endocardial haemorrhage on the left ventricle, and
congestion of various organs, e.g. the lungs.
Results obtained with repeated injections of various biological products
The results obtained with 19 hill-bulls and five cross-bred calves, which reacted at least once
following the injections, are summarized in Table II. It will be seen that two subcutaneous injections
of blackquarter serum at 20 or 40 days interval produced no symptoms. This in fact was the case
with all the 62 reactors whatever the antigen. Their state of hypersensitiveness however is shown
by the shock which follows the subcutaneous injection of rinderpest serum or blackquarter vaccine.
Once the animals are sensitized in this way they are liable to be shocked by other immune sera, dosage
being unimportant within the limits used, and the fact that they equally respond to serum from
uninoculated buffaloes strongly suggests that it is the foreign serum protein which is responsible for
the shock. At the same time serum from hill-bulls, i.e. homologous serum, is without effect. In
these experiments the duration of the sensitive state was for at least 397 days.