The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1912-09-26
FIND GERM THAT
CAUSES STRANGE
DISEASE OF HORSES
Kansas Agricultural
School Locates
Bacteria
TRYING O SERUM
1t is Hoped In This Way to
Find Check for New
Organism

i1oAle, hanS.-lne germ that
causes the disease in horses which
is sweeping Kansas, Nebraska and
other states has been found by the
scientists of the Kansas Agricultural
college, who are working in a field
station here. 1t is a germ new to the
psychologists of this country and,
as yet, has been only temporarily
classified as a germ of the p%asteurel-
la group.
Having found the germ that causes
the disease, the experts of the col
lege are trying to find a way, first,
TO get a vaccine that will prevent we'll
horses from contracting the disease,
and then to get a serum or %anti-toXin
that will cure horses previously
stricken.
Believe Vaccine is Effective.
The experts believe they have al
ready found the vaccine that will
immunize we'll horses, and they have
been experimenting with it for two
weeks. The second proposition, of
touring the disease in afflicted horses
is yet a away and the experiment.
N5 SNA OAAy say tAol Ll1Sle Is llIll6
hope for a stricken horse now.
The story of how the germ was
found is an interesting one at this
time, especially as it is the first time
it has been found in this country, and
the discovery is doubly important
because it definitely fixes the horse
plague as Borna's disease, a kind of
serebro-spinal meningitis. we'll known
in Germany the last twenty-five years
but never before recognized in this
country. 1t also emphasizes the use
~lessness of all the hundreds of So
called remedies which have been rec
commended by different persons.
Soon after the horse plague began
to spread in Kansas the experimental
station of the Kansas Agricultural
College at Manhattan established a
field station in HoXie to study the di-
sease.
The business men of HoXie and
the large ranch owner near here APP
pointed a committee headed by j. w.
S%chlechter, representative of that
district in the state legislature, to
give all the aid they could to the col
lege experts. Two vacant buildings
were given to them as laboratories
and the ranchmen gave them horses
upon which to experiment.
Found a New Organism.
With this equipment the scientists
began work. August %. In the first
post norton of a horse that had died
of the disease Haslam found some or
ganisms he had never seer before,
and in the first seven post mortems
of diseased horses he and Jackley.
working independently on the same
cases, found the same strange or
ganism.
II have not met this germ be-
FORE" said Haslam, and l have ex-
amined the brains of seventy-five
horses in the last year or two that
had died of blind staggers and other
diseases.
Same Germ in Every Sick Horse
Having found this germ in each
OF the seven horses We examined that
had died OF this plague we decided it
was the of the disease. And 1
may add that we found it in all the
diseased horses we have examined
since.
I'VE then decided to try out a
bacterin therapy and see if horses
could be va%ccinated and immunized
against this germ, and if SO, if they
would be free from the disease aft
erward."
So far the tests at the field station
in Hoxie have not gone far enough
to prove anything definite enough
to warrant the scientists in recom-
mending the bacterin treatment.
They are using it upon a large num-
Der of horses.