48
Paratuberculosis of Cattle in Assam
bullocks. At the Jorhat farm, however, a separate section of cattle breeding
and dairying contained a fair number of cows and young stock, and the
Titabar farm, besides the plough bullocks, had a few young stock brought
over from the Jorhat farm for rearing.
The principal breeds of cattle at the Jorhat farm were Mourangia, Rang¬
pur, Tharparkar, Sindhi and Bihari. In the first preliminary test of eight
animals of this farm, one animal (a cow) was found as positive reactor, but
on examination of the rectal scrapings the disease was positively diagnosed
in a Sindhi bull transferred to this farm from Khanapara. From Table IV
which contains the result of subsequent tests on this farm positive reactors
would be found amongst the plough bullocks also, since they were allowed
access on the same pastures as the dairy animals.
At the Karimgunj farm the class of animals involved in the test were
the plough bullocks of Bihari and Manipuri breed. The source of infection
at this farm has been attributed to a Sindhi bullock transferred to this farm
from Khanapara. This animal, during its stay at the Karimgunj farm, had
passed through several attacks of diarrhoea, and at the time of the test,
although diarrhoea had subsided, general emaciation and fading of the colour
of the coat was discernible. In the subsequent test in which 34 bullocks
were included, a fair number of them were found positive reactors (as shown
in Table IV).
The principal class of animals at the Titabar farm were the plough
bullocks and a certain number of young bulls drawn from the Jorhat farm.
The test revealed no reaction amongst the young stock brought over from the
Jorhat farm where the infection had already existed, but a number of reac-
tors were found amongst the plough bullocks for which no source of infection
could be ascertained. The disease was, however, definitely diagnosed on this
farm on the result of bowel-washing examination of two positive reacting
bullocks.
4. Jail Dairies.—Five district jails in the province maintained dairies
with animals supplied from the Government farms. At the time of issue of
these animals to the jail dairies the disease probably existed on Government
farms but due to its insidious nature remained undiagnosed. Thus the first
detection of the disease in 1933 at the Khanapara farm which supplied ani-
mals to Gauhati and Nowgong jails, was followed by reports of diarrhoea
and debility amongst some of the animals of these jail dairies. About a year
later the condition in these apparently clinical cases was diagnosed either at
autopsy or on the result of bowel-washing examination.
Amongst the jail dairy animals the disease was first diagnosed at Now-
gong on the result of bowel-washing examination of a clinical case. Later,
it was detected amongst the animals of other jail dairies at Gauhati, Jorhat,
Sylhet and Dibrugarh. At Nowgong jail dairy two cows were reported to
have died of the disease in 1935, and by the following year the position with
regard to the disease at this jail dairy had so deteriorated that it had resulted
in closing down the jail dairy temporarily. With regard to other jail dairies,
however, the position was almost the same as would be seen from Table V
containing the result of the Avian Tuberculin test.