The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1917-06-30
MISSISSIPPI, SATURDAY, JUNE 80, lel,

4 materials before they are able sue
cessfully to withstand attacks from
the specific organisms which cause tn
several maladies.
Educated investigators the worlt
over have expended a vast amount o.
effort and study in attempts to dis
cover and perfect the most effective
and at the same time the most prac.
ticable means of immunizing animals
! against the more destructive of the
infectious diseases. Immense amounts
of money have been appropriated fol
the advancement of these researches
both from governmental sources ano
from gifts of private wealth. The
goal sought by these searchers along
lines of agricultural interest is the
discovery of some means by which
immunity may be conveyed to large
number of animals readily and at
slight expense.
VACCINATION AS A
PREVENTIVE
Satisfactory immunity is readily
granted cattle at the present time
against the ravages of blackleg or
anthrax through the
injection beneath the skin of the sus-
ceptible animal of some material con-
tanning the living but weakened germ
of the disease. The amount of this
material is so graduated that it caus-
es the prompt development of the
very disease that is being guarded
against, but only in a mild and COM
paratively harmless degree. There is
considerable elevation of temperature,
and there may even be limited tumor
formation, but only in the rarest cases
does this type of blackleg, that has
been Intentionally produced by inocu-
lation, progressed so far that the ami
NAL is seriously injured. The value of
artificially produced immunity in the
struggle against this disease is shown
by the fact that the losses of young
cattle which reached from Is to 20
per cent in certain infected localities
previous to the discovery of vaccine
treatment, have been reduced to one
half of 1 per cent at the present time
where vaccines are used.
1t is at once apparent that hard
and fast conclusions can not be drawn
favoring vaccination against anthrax
from results obtained in the suppress
sion of blackleg by the use of black
leg vaccine. But there are sufficient
number of points of similarity be-
tween the two diseases to justify con-
sidering the two together. They are
So similar that for many years no dis
tinction was made between the two
but all cases were called
anthrax.
The successful vaccination of cattle
against either of these two troubles
must consist in giving the animal
that is to be safeguarded sufficient
ly severe attack of the disease that is
feared to provide the body tissues
with such degree Of resistance that
no germs can be ta1en fnto the. sys-
find lodgmens and nature there. After
such vaccination the animal is safely
protected and can go with perfect
safety into fields that would have
proven deadly before the vaccination
was performed.
Just how this immunity is obtained
is still an open question, but it is
very manifest that the attenuated or
ganism is able by it's growth to affect
the tissues (some say the animal cells,
others the fluid tissues) in such a
that virulent organisms of the
variety presented in the voccine can
not possibly thrive, and without the
rapid multiplication of virulent or
ganisms within the animal tissues
there can be no disease.
Blackleg vaccine is prepared from
the affected muscle of an animal dead
,,4I iC
produced by the cultivation in beef
broth of pure cultures of anthrax
bacilli, hence may be manufactured in
unlimited quantities without having
recourse to any animal suffering from
the disease.
Starting with a thrifty culture of
anthrax bacilli growing in a flask of
Pasteur, in 1881, by series
of experiments found that subjecting
it to temperature of 1885 degrees
F. for twelve days would so lower the
virulence of the organisms that they
would only exceptionally cause death
when injected into rabbits. Continu-
ing the attenuation by subjecting
the bacilh to the same degree of heat
for twelve days longer, or twenty
four days in all, he discovered that he
had in his possession a living culture
of anthrax baeilli that had lost its
power of killing cattle, sheep, rabbits,
or guinea pigs, although still capa-
BILE of killing white mice. This was
the beginning of the practical prepa-
tion of anthrax vaccine, for he soon
found that cattle or sheep when in
oculated with the culture of twenty
four days attenuation would survive
the treatment and would gain very
material power in resisting Infection
from inoculations with bacilli of a
high degree of virulence. This power
of resistance is needed to enable them