7
complicating rinderpest in animals, hill or plains, utilized in the preparation of
anti-rinderpest serum.
One reason of the variation, or rather decrease in virulence, of rinderpest
blood used in the preparation of sera, may be attributed to the presence of
piroplasmata and trypanosomata, or both, in the circulation of the hill cattle.
These organisms were not observed in stained specimens during 1900—1903,
when the blood of large number of cattle was microscopically examined,
except in the case of one animal in June 1902, but they appeared in one form
or other and continued to exist more or less during the past 18 months in the
blood of a considerable number of hill animals utilized at Muktesar.
Further, at Bareilly Depôt during the latter six months of the year,
trypanosomiasis was observed in hill cattle brought down from the Himalayas,
and in other animals of the same breed the presence of the small variety of
piroplasma concurrently with a small form of trypanosoma, was demonstrated.
The majority of these animals indicated by their condition that they were
suffering from some serious malady, and when inoculated with rinderpest
virus frequently succumbed to a mixed form of disease.
28. Anthrax.—Bovines which have passed through a severe attack of
Anthrax, have conferred upon them, as a result, an active immunity against
the disease which generally persists for a period of 10 to 12 months, under the
most favourable conditions. Therefore, any attempt to discover a method of
producing in the same species of animals a more lasting immunity than that
conferred upon them by Nature, may probably prove futile.
The question, however, that we have to interest ourselves in is:—as only a
passive immunity is conferred for a period of a few weeks, when the serum we
now prepare is injected into animals by the serum alone method, as in rinder-
pest—Can we increase the potency of the serum in question so that a much
longer period of protection will follow such an injection, without having to
fall back upon the simultaneous method, in which case the " materies morbi "
of the disease would have to be utilized in order to produce an active protec-
tion for the periods above mentioned ?
Owing to the press of work during the past six months, I have had no
time to give to special researches in this particular direction.
29. Hæmorrhagic Septicœmia, Barbone (Ghotwa, Ghotu) or Malignant
Sore Throat.—In my Annual Report for 1902-03, I put on record the results
arrived at up to date. Unfortunately, during the winter of 1902, the cultures
lost their virulence and later the organisms died. It was not until the rainy
season of 1904 that fresh cultures could be obtained when animals which had
been previously protected against Hæmorrhagic Septicæmia during 1902,
viz.:—
(i) by passing through spontaneous attacks of the malady;
(ii) with the bile of animals which had succumbed to Hæmorrhagic
Septicæmia and later, tested with virulent culture, or which had
only received injection of bile without subsequent testing with
virulent culture;
(iii) with vegetable serum and tested with virulent culture;
were tested whether the immunity conferred, 22½ months previously, was
still present. The following results were obtained. All the bovines both
plains and hill, with one exception, which was anticipated, on account of its
only receiving injections of bile, without a further inoculation of virulent
culture, all survived although the control animals inoculated with virulent
culture only, succumbed without exception to a virulent form of Hæmorrhagic
Septicæmia. We are, therefore, in a position to state that animals on which
an active immunity has been conferred are still protected when a period of 22½
months or nearly two years has elapsed since the time of their being
immunized.
30. In addition, during the past six months, I have, as promised in my
Annual Report for 1902-03, protected and hyper-immunized bovines and
buffaloes against Hæmorrhagic Septicæmia and prepared anti-Hæmorrhagic