Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-12-31

equipped laboratory and the examina-
ton made by an expert in such work.
Such diagnosis cannot be undertaken
by the Maine Agricultural Experiment
station.
The perfection of these methods has
been the greatest step so far taken to-
wards the control of this disease. BY
their use a herd can be separated into
two parts, the infected and the heal
thy In this way, if care is taken to
keep the infected cows entirely isolat-
ed, the disease can be kept from the
healthy cows. An important point
brought out by this work is that all
infected cows do not abort. Thus the
abortion is only one symptom of the
disease. Just as some men have light
attacks of typhoid fever, so some cows
have a light infection with the abor-
ton germ. However, these cows even
though they do not themselves abort
may spread the disease to other ami
mails Thus because a COW has ealved
normally is no certain sign that she
is not infected.
A number of so-called remedies have
been proposed for this disease. How
ever, it may be said at once that there
| is no proven remedy or preventive for
this disease. Carbolic acid has fire.
quently been proposed as specific
against this disease. Some breeders
have apparently used it with success,
while an equal number may be found
! who have had no success whatever
| with it. All carefully conducted ex-
| periments, in which a portion OF each
| herd were not treated, have failed TO
show any benefit from the carbclic
acid.
| More recently Methylin Blue has
been proposed as a remedy However,
the few experiments which have been
carried out have suffered from the
common defect, viz. that sufficient I'M
treated control animals We're not run
| in each herd, so that it remains quite
improved that this drug has any speci-
fic beneficial effect.
The essence of the matter appears
| to be that the disease runs certain
course in a herd and then dies out,
partially at least, of it's own accord.
| The typical history of the disease in
| a herd is this. In the first year there
/ will be one or two abortions. The next
! year there will be more. and about the
! third or fourth year the. disease will
reach it's height, when go per cent. or
more of the cows may abort. After
that the number of abortions will de-
crease until only few of the heifers
or newly purchased cows abort each
year. The breeder usually does not
realize the seriousness of the trouble
until it has reached its height. He
then uses some so-called remedy and
the disease subsidies. The remedy is
given the credit while in fact he might
have had the same result If he had
done nothing at all. The majority of
cows abort only once. Some will abort
twice and a much smaller number will
abort oftener. 1t appears that an at
tack of the disease confers some i'm
munity upon the COW. There is some
hope that methods will be found to
produce an artificial immunity which
will protect the cows. number of
experiments with vaccines have been
undertaken at various places with this
end in view, but so far no crucial re-
suits have been published.
1t is peShaps unnecessary to add
that the widely advertised patent
remedies for this disease are simply
means of getting the dairyman's
money and will not do what is claim
ed of them.