THE BLOOD GROUPS OF INDIAN CATTLE AND
BUFFALOES
BY
BALWANT SINGH, G.P.V.C.
Imperial Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar
(Received for publication on 4 February 1942)
F ROM present day knowledge of anthropology, genetics and immunology,
it is well established that certain natural antibodies are formed in the
system of animals, apart from environmental stimulus and in accordance
with definite genetical laws. Isohaemagglutinins, by which mankind can
be divided into different blood-groups, provide an example of such natural
antibodies.
Landsteiner [1901] was the first to distinguish the principal blood-groups and he
showed that this grouping depends, in the main, on the distribution of two different
antigenic constituents, which may be present together or separately or may both be ab
sent. There are two corresponding antibodies and these are so distributed that neither of
them is present in the blood of an individual whose red cells contain the corresponding
antigen. Two classifications of these four main blood-groups have been adopted in diffe
rent countries, those of Jansky [1908] and of Moss [1910]. The former has been adopted
in India by Greval [1940] and will be followed in this work. The constituent factors of
these groups are set out as follows :—
Antigens
Antibodies
O
αβ
A
β
B
a
AB
—
In the case of man, a vast amount of investigation has been carried out and, as a
result, marked racial differences in the relative frequency of the four groups have been
found. Dungern and Hirszfeld [1909] and Hirszfeld [1926] established that the anti
genic constituents A and B are inherited on Mendelian lines, the presence of each factor
being dominant to its absence. In children, a characteristic present in one of the parents
may be lacking but no characteristic not possessed by at least one of the parents can
appear. It is this hereditary nature of blood characters that is of such great importance
in Anthropology.
The question of heredity as regards group characteristics in animals is not only of
theoretical but also of practical importance. Thus, a knowledge of blood groupings
should make it possible to prevent accidents in blood transfusion work and should render
important assistance to animal breeding and so place genetics on a solid foundation.
There is also the question of hereditary susceptibility to infection. Hirszfeld [1926] has
shown that susceptibility, as well as immunity, is transmitted to descendants along with
certain group characteristics of the corpuscles. At present, it is impossible to say whether
susceptibility or immunity is bound up in any way with such serological properties of the
blood. If in future there should be established a relationship between the characters
of the corpuscles and antibody formation, a vast field for experimental work will be
opened up in an attempt to create animal breeds with greater immunity to disease.
Everything depends on the localization of valuable characteristics in different chromo
somes with regard to breeding. The results of experiments, carried out in Hirszfeld's
laboratory on sheep specially chosen for crossbreeding and on pigs by Szymanowski
[1934], have shown that the capacity for isoagglutinin formation, which is a dominant
characteristic, is transmitted by heredity.
Serological differences in various species of animals and their constitutional and here
ditary characteristics have, to some extent, been worked out in certain countries and the
differentiation of blood groupings in various animal species has been established. It is
known, for instance, that, apart from the existence of two characteristic groupings, some
individuals possess corpuscles which do not agglutinate at all, while in others the corpus
cles agglutinate with both kinds of agglutinins.
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