248 THE INDIAN JOURNAL OF VETERINARY SCIENCE AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY [ I, III
mineral content is responsible for a lack of palatability in the herbage and a consequent de-
pression of appetite in the grazing animals. Neither is there any evidence that the shortage of
mineral causes the herbage to be digested any less efficiently than " normal" cultivated herbage of
similar maturity and organic composition. The amount of net energy which ruminant animals are
able to derive from any form of herbage seems to be independent of the mineral content and to
depend solely on the amount and character of the organic constituents.
Malnutrition on pasturage of sub-normal mineral content is due directly to the failure of the
diet to supply the necessary inorganic materials for constructional purposes and for maintaining
the normal balance of minerals in the blood and tissues, and is not even in part, to be ascribed to
any indirect effect, such as is embodied in the suggestion that the mineral deficiency leads to under-
nutrition of the animal by causing a depression of its appetite and its capacity to digest the organic
constituents of the herbage."
Report of work in animal bacteriology.—W. GILTNER (Michigan Sta. Rpt. 1928, pp,
160-166, 167, 168). (From United States Department of Agriculture, Experiment Station
Record, Vol 64, No. 3.)
Regarding work by W. L. Chandler (E. S. R., 61, p. 469), it is pointed out that parasites of
domesticated, fur-bearing, and wild animals are very prevalent in the State, causing great economic
loss. The work of identification and control of intestinal protozoa was largely centered around the
control of coccidiosis in poultry and rabbits. Two things were accomplished, (1) the destruction
of the infective stage in chick brooder houses and rabbit hutches by scrubbing them with colloidal
iodine and (2) the improvement in the condition of birds by the daily feeding of small amounts of
colloidal iodine, presumably through assisting the bird to handle the toxins produced by the infec-
tion.
The work with parasites of silver foxes and dogs consisted in an attempt to develop a stable and
satisfactory capsule of colloidal iodine for dosing them for roundworms and hookworms. Critical
dosing experiments in the case of four foxes indicated that two capsules, loaded with stabilized
powdered colloidal iodine mixed with mineral oil, were efficient in the removal of both roundworms
and hookworms. Laboratory experiments carried out on soil from fox pens in the State indicate
that in the case of well-drained sandy soil such as is found in most fox pens in the State if the
colloidal iodine is sprayed into the soil and then the soil flooded with water it is possible to accomplish
disinfection to depth of 3 or 4 in.
In continuing experiments with sheep, colloidal iodine suspensoid was used instead of the absorbed
iodine product. The most important findings in critical dosing experiments with more than 400
lambs were (1) that the total iodine content of any dose required to destroy all of the stomach
worms when administered in such a way as to enter the fourth stomach is approximately 1.2 gm.
(2) That when 6 oz. of a dilute suspensoid containing 0.66 per cent. iodine was administered by
the drench method it completely destroyed all stomach worms in all lambs in a flock of 16 animals,
and (3) that when 4 oz. of a suspensoid containing 1 per cent. I 2 and 0.5 per cent. copper sulphate
was administered by the drench method to a flock of 100 lambs it failed to enter the fourth stomach
in only 1 case out of the 100. These results led to the carrying out of field experiments in one of
which a flock of 31 lambs, 1 adult buck, and 1 adult ewe, weighing a total of 2,239.8 lbs., were
dosed with from 4 to 6 oz. each of iodine suspensoid containing 0.66 per cent. I 2 . When again
weighed 5 weeks later these animals showed a total gain of 630.2 lbs., an average of nearly 20 lbs.
each.