3
controls of the above, each received 1 c. c. of the virulent hill blood. As the
result the controls showed slight symptoms of the disease but quickly
recovered. The two bulls inoculated with 5 c. c. each per 600 lbs. body weight,
equal to 2.4 and 2.5 c.c. actual, exhibited thermal reactions with slight
symptoms and quickly recovered. The remaining six animals presented no
symptoms other than a rise of temperature.
14. The animals experimented with showed but a slight degree of suscep-
tibility to rinderpest, the minimum dose of serum being too large, although all
the abovementioned bulls exhibited, on microscopical examination of their
blood, the pyroplasma which is so common a feature in the circulation of
animals in these provinces.
15. As the previous experiment showed that virulent hill blood produced
such mild symptoms in the animals inoculated, it was determined to expose the
remaining number of bulls, 14 in number, to the action of plains and hill
virulent rinderpest blood, half of the number with the former and half with
the latter. The former portion of the experiment had to be postponed owing
to the impossibility of obtaining plains rinderpest material at that time of the
year. Consequently 14 head of cattle each received 1 c c. of virulent hill
blood subcutaneously, 12 being inoculated with material obtained from
hill bull No. 116 C. and two with material from hill bull No. 112 C. All the
animals exhibited more or less thermal reactions varying between maxima of
39°.2 and 41°0c., but five showed no other symptoms. One, however, suc¬
cumbed to a fairly severe attack of rinderpest complicated with pyroplasmosis.
The blood of each animal, examined microscopically, presented organisms which
are classed under the head of pyroplasmata.
16. Until the question has been definitely settled as to whether the
mortality in the plains animals is greater when rinderpest has been contracted
subcutaneously or inoculated from plains to plains, one must necessarily
express but a guarded opinion, but it would appear likely that the great
mortality of 45 to 53 per cent. in Hamirpur and Jalaun Districts must be due
to other forms of disease than rinderpest, perhaps running concurrently in the
same animal.
17. Bulls from the Bijnor District.—A second series of experiments for
testing the susceptibility to rinderpest were arranged for with 12 bulls from
the Bijnor District, but in this instance, previous to making use of the serum
test by the simultaneous method, two animals were inoculated each with 1 c.c.
of virulent rinderpest blood respectively, in order to ascertain the virulence of
the disease exhibited by control animals. Both animals showed symptoms of
disease, one of pyroplasmosis only, to which it succumbed on the 12th day
after inoculation, while the second presented symptoms of both rinderpest and
pyroplasmosis, but recovered. On this result being arrived at the remaining
Bijnor District animals, ten in number, were on the 11th March 1904 also
subcutaneously inoculated, each with 1 c.c. of virulent rinderpest (hill) blood :
no anti-rinderpest serum being administered. Four of the bulls showed no
symptoms at all, one but a slight symptom on the 13th day after inoculation,
which was absent on the following day. Of the remaining five bulls one pre-
sented vesicles on the buccal m.m., three animals vesicles followed by ulcers
only, and the fifth vesicles, ulcers and slight diarrhœa. So that of ten bulls
inoculated with virulent hill blood only one showed marked symptoms of the
disease, and all recovered.
18. Conclusions.— The doses as standardized at Muktesar would prove
sufficient to protect the most susceptible animals (Bijnor District) from an
attack of rinderpest. The question previously raised, viz.,—that of the action
of virulent plains blood on plains breed of cattle, still remains to be solved, for
it is evident that the susceptibility to rinderpest of plains animals from the
United Provinces (as exemplified by the results obtained with virulent hill
blood on many occasions) is but slight. Further, it must be borne in mind that
the blood of all the bulls brought from the Bijnor District contained the pyro-
plasma in varying numbers during the past cold season and the animals
suffered from the mild winter form of disease only, whereas during the rainy
season the acute form may present itself alone or concurrently with rinderpest
and account for the high mortality now ascribed to rinderpest alone.
B 2