P. G. PANDE 55
It will be seen from Table II that all the vaccinated goats showed well-
marked reactions following upon vaccination, and all were found immune
when subsequently tested for immunity. The results of the vaccination
experiments as shown in Tables I and II clearly indicate the possibility of the
usefulness of the vaccines under field conditions.
EPIZOOTOLOGY
At the Goat Breeding Farm, Etah, the bucks and the nannies of both
the Jamnapari and Barbari breeds are maintained separately, and to ensure
proper management of the herd kids of both are kept away from their mothers.
The disease prevailed amongst the bucks, all being farm-bred. Prior to the
appearance of the outbreak, no animals were purchased from outside, and the
possibility of the disease having thus been introduced was obviously eliminated.
The commonly accepted view on the epizootology of pasturellosis that
the organism normally present in the upper respiratory tracts assumes
pathogenicity in animals predisposed to certain debilitating factors was not
sufficiently proved in respect of these outbreaks, as although such prevailing
factors as fatigue due to long journey and sudden climatic changes might have
predisposed the animals to infection, bacteriological examination of the
nasopharynx of in-contact animals could not be accomplished, no survivors
being available in the affected batch. Although subjected to the same pre-
disposing factors, animals of other batches showed no infection, and cultural
examination of the nasopharynx and the tracheal tracts of five healthy goats
taken at random proved negative for this or any other types of pasteurella.
The isolation of the causative organism from the nasal secretion of affected
goats, viewed in conjunction with the successful transmission of the disease
by contact with sick animals, would indicate that the infection, having once
started in a herd, can spread in nature through the respiratory tract, as the
bacilli sprayed out from the nasal secretion in the act of sneezing may heavily
charge the atmosphere of a closed shed and could easily be inhaled in large
numbers by healthy animals when they came in contact, or otherwise mingled
with the diseased ones.
DISCUSSION
Organisms of the pasteurella group have been isolated from enzootics of
goat pneumonia in the past in this country, but up to the present their true
significance in the causation of these outbreaks has not sufficiently been
explained. The earliest authentic record of pneumonia in goats due to a
pasteurella organism is that of Nicolle and Refik-Bey [Hutyra and Marek,
1938] and what appears to be the same outbreak has recently been described
in greater detail by Kolayli and Raif [1935] in goats in Anatolia.
Clinically, the Anatolian outbreaks appear to bear several points of re-
semblance to the condition described in this paper, except that the animals
in these outbreaks did not show symptoms of paralysis as noted by those
workers. On epizootiological and pathological grounds, however, no appre-
ciable differences exist. Morphologically and culturally, and in biochemical
reactions the organism isolated from the present outbreaks seems to agree
closely with Bacillus bipolaris caprisepticus isolated by Kolayli et al.