The Grit-advocate., 1903-06-05
clRcUmvENTINo THE CATTLE
TICK.

IISN.
Prof. W. II. Dalrymple of the Louis
lana station, in an address to Ne
braska stockmen, said:
We in the South consider. so far as
our cattle interests are concerned, and
we might also say, those Of the North
ern breeder who aims at creating
market in the South, that perhaps the
most valuable discovery ever made, is,
that when few drops of blood are
drawn from one of cur native tick
infested animals, and injected under
meath the skin c. susceptible one, it
will produce in the latter mild at
tack of Texas fever, from which, in
the great majority of cases, the animal
SO treated will recover, and after
wards be able to withstand subse-
Quent attacks of the disease, brought
about by transmission of the specific
organism through the medium of the
common cattle-tick, or, in other words,
become immune. l do not know just
how it is up here in Nebraska, but
down our way there are still to be
found few people. the exact num-
Der l have never attempted to esti-
mate, who have a sort Of ingrained
aversion for anything to which the
term scientific" is applied, but who,
at the same time, seem absolutely OBJ
livious to the fact, that scientific in
vestigation. about which they appear
to possess such crude notions, and at
which they are inclined to sneer, as
If there was some sleight-off- hand
juggling connected with it, is nothing
more nor less than persistent, pains
taking searching after the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. In this very work Of immuniza-
ton, we have an excellent illustra-
ton: Texas fever, the hitherto dread
ed bane and bugbear of every South
ern stockman, below the fever line,
whose desire it was to purchase, in
northern latitudes, pure bred cattle
for the purpose of upbuilding and i'm
proving his degenerated herds, either
OF beef or dairy animals, has almost
as many names as there are breeds
OF cattle, and just as many theories as
to It's cause and methods of treatment.
And 1t is probable that such a chaotic
state OF affairs would still have existed
had 1T not been for the indefatigable,
dogged, and persistent efforts of the
scientist in his search after truth,
which has resulted in the accuracy Of
the knowledge now possessed relative
to the true cause and nature of the
disease, and the more Intelligent and
effective measures by which to COM
bat its ravages.
AS has been previously limited, the
actual. or exciting, cause of Texas
fever Is a germ-a malarial type of
germ-belonging to the protozoa, the
lowest form of animal life. Technic-
ally, this organism is known as "piro-
plasma bigeminum," and 1t can be
found within the red blood cells OF
any OF our native southern cattle that
have been exposed to tick infestation.
1t may be of interest to state at
this point that we have Southern ma
tlves, however, that are non-immunes.
This may appear Father strange to
some of you, as it did to many, in
cluding some of our leading stock
journals, when a South Carolina herd
of cattle became infected with Texas
fever after exhibition at the Charles
ton Exposition in 1901. The explana-
tion Of such an occurrence, however,
is quite simple. when we realize that
the tick Is, SO far as we know, the
only intermediary host of the disease
germ. and that there are many places
in the southern states, as, for ex-
ample, the alluvial lands of my own
state, or lands subject to periodic
inundation, on which ticks are rarely
to be found. Consequently animals
born and raised on such tick-free
places are non-immune, because they
have not had the opportunity to be-
come inoculated by the natural meth
cd. viz, through the intermediation of
the tick. But, il animals so raised
are afterwards placed upon ticky pas
lures, they will contract the fever
just es surely as If they had been i'm
ported from North of the Federal
Quarantine Line. In short, it is, with
us, question Of ticks, or no ticks.