ORIGINAL ARTICLES
INVESTIGATION OF CONTAGIOUS ABORTION IN GOATS WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO ISOLATION OF Brucella Abortus (BANG) FROM
GOATS' MILK*
By P. R. NILAKANTAN and P. G. PANDE, Section of Pathology and Bacteriology, Indian Veterinary
Research Institute, Mukteswar, United Provinces
(Received for publication on 13 January 1948)
T HERE exists a loose natural host specificity amongst the organisms of the genus Brucella para-
sitizing cattle, goats and swine amongst the domestic animals. Of these, Brucella abortus, the
common causative agent of bovine abortion has been recovered from naturally infected horses, fowls,
dogs, sheep, wild dear, wild buffalo and human beings [Huddleson, 1943]. Br. meletensis, the organism
of goat abortion, has been known to cause ' undulant fever ' in man and parasitizes cattle producing
abortion in this class of animals. Br. suis, which causes abortion in sows, has been isolated from the
horse, the fowl, the dog and human beings. Of the two species causing abortion in goats and cows,
Br. meletensis may naturally infect cows [Parisot, Vidal and Levy, 1932 ; Giles, Peres and Culty,
1932 and Taylor, Lisbonne and Roman, 1932] the natural host of Br. abortus. Very little informa
tion is really available regarding the susceptibility of goats to natural infection with Br. abortus,
though the organism is capable of producing abortion in goats [Doyle, 1939] when introduced arti-
ficially.
Positive evidence regarding natural infection of goats with Br. abortus emanates from the work
of Meurou and Pineau [1937] in France. These authors isolated a strain of Br. abortus from the milk
and blood of a case of abortion in a goat that had remained for sometime in contact with an abort-
ing heifer. Others, particularly Haddow [1934] in India and Holth [1937] in Norway carried out
agglutination tests in large herds of goats and found a considerable number of reactors to Br. abortus
antigen.
In the present investigation Br. abortus was isolated from the milk of goats in a badly infected
farm where cases of abortion in goats have been occurring annually since 1929. The finding reported
in this paper, therefore, bears some significance in that, firstly, it tends to supplement an already
meagre information on natural infectivity of goats to Br. abortus and secondly, it represents the only
authentic record of the isolation of Br. abortus from goats in an infected farm.
SHORT REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK
The following review of work done during the past years has been prepared from the research
record files maintained at this Institute. This showed, that most of the work was carried out with
materials obtained from the Government Livestock Farm, Hissar, in the East Punjab.
The first outbreak of the disease amongst Beetal goats of the Hissar Farm was reported in 1929.
Agglutination test carried out with the sera of some of the aborted goats with the stock antigens
of Br. abortus and Br. meletensis has yielded a negative result. Heart blood and the stomach con-
tents of foetuses and the vaginal swabs of some freshly aborted female goats on cultural examination
has yielded a stumpy cocci-like organism which did not agglutinate when put to test against the sera
of aborted animals. In this outbreak, as a sequal to abortion, some goats were reported to have
died of metritis. The condition was again reported in the following year in which Br. meletensis
was isolated from the milk of one of the goats. In this outbreak the largest number of abortions
occurred during September and November amongst the Jamunapari goats. A large number of sera
put to agglutination tests with Br. abortus and Br. meletensis antigens was found to react positively
against one or the other of these antigens. Infective materials from aborted foetuses and vaginal
* Read at the Indian Science Congress, Patna Session 1948.
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