The Etiology of White Scour in Calves

ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

27 1

to give one injection of a large dose or two injections of medium doses. He succeeded in completely immunising horses against glanders by giving 600 milligrammes of dead bacilli associated with urea in one injection, or by giving two doses of 300 milligrammes of a similar mixture. The immunity conferred lasts for at least one year. In practice it is convenient to inject under the skin a dose of 100 milli~ grammes of the immunising powd er, followed at intervals of a week by doses of 200 and 250 milligramm es. The injections produce no fever or general disturbance. The powder does not undergo change even at a high temperature. It may therefore be used in hot countries. Marxer considers that his method constitutes a distinct ad\'ance in the struggle against infectious disorders of animal'.;. The immunising powder is not dangerous either for the practitioner or for animals. From this point of view the process is superior to the methods of vaccination against anthrax, black-quarter, tuberculo
THE ETIOLOGY OF WHITE SCOUR IN CALVES. TITZE and Weichel, in corroboration of previous experiments by Jensen and others, have found that feeding with small quantities of cultures of V:lnous kinds of bacilli, such as typical coli species isolated from the bodies of calves dead of white scour, of pseudo-coli bacilli, paracoli bacilli, bacillus paratyphosus B., and bacillus enteritidis Giirtner, produces with great certainty severe diarrhcea m young calves, which often ends in death. On /,ostmortem examination one finds the same changes as in enzootic cases of white scour. Similarly, in every case of white scour it is possible to isolate from the intestinal contents of the cadaver, and usually also from the internal organs and the blood, bacteria of the above groups which are pathogenic for calves. In a spontaneous outbreak of white scour amongst eight- to fourteen-daysold experimental calves belonging to the Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, in which five out of twenty calves died, the authors accidentally obtained from the intestinal contents the so-called bacillus of swine-fever. This bacillus could not be discovered in the internal organs or in the blood, nor did the blood serum reveal any agglutinative action on the isolated bacillus. The same bacillus was found in the dung of healthy horses kept in the experimental institute of the Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, whilst in the dung from nineteen other horses belonging to various owners neither the paratyphosus B. nor Gartner's bacillus was to be found. Another enzootic of white scour on an estate in Mecklenberg which was investigated proved of considerable importance in relation to the etiology of meat-poisoning, for here the bacillus enteritidis Gartner appeared to be the cause of the diarrhcea. The authors could not obtain blood serum from young calves which had recovered from the disease for the purpose of carrying out the agglutination test. Nevertheless, blood serum from six apparently , healthy calves agglutinated the bacillus enteritidis Gartner in a strength of I to 8000. The bacillus paratyphoslls B. was not agglutinated, nor was the real bacillus coli. In examinations of numerous cases they never found that the bacillus coli of cattle was agglutinated by the serum of the healthy animal. In the meeting of the Veterinary Union at Rostock, on the 11th January 1908, Riemer pointed out the significance of the baCillus enteritidis Gartner in septic diseases of calves. In four out of eleven cases of

ADSTRACTS AND

REPORT~ .

septic disease in calves a micro-organism was isolated which could not be differentiated from the bacillus enteritidis Gartner either by cultural characters or by the agglutination test. In the middle of May 1908 a six-weeks-old calf in Grosslichterfelde fell ill spontaneously with diarrhoea and slight inflammation of the lungs. The authors found in the animal's dung a bacterium which could not be differentiated from the bacillus paratyphosus B. or from the so-called bacillus of swine·fever. The blood serum from this calf agglutinated this bacillus, as well as a specimen of paratyphosus B. (which was obtained for comparison), in a proportion of 1 to 200. The calf recovered. It became of importance, therefore, to determine in what relationship the individual varieties of typhoid bacilli found in white scour stand to one another, and whether the meat-poisoning bacilli play an important part, or whether their occurrence is only to be regarded as exceptional. They examined two hundred different varieties of white scour organisms which had been isolated during numerous outbreaks of white scour occurring over almost tht:: whole of Prussia, and were named according to their morphological and biological properties and their agglutinative effects. One hundred and fiftyone specimens appeared to be tbe common bacillus coli, twenty-eight the paracolon baCIllus of Jensen, fourteen the pseudo-colon bacillus of Poels, two the baCIllus proteus, one the bacterium acidi lactici. Four varieties could not be examined because they arrived in an impure state. Th ey attempted to differentiate the pathogenic colon bacilli from the colon bacilli obtained from normal bowel contents, and paid special attention to their h;emolytic properti es. Forty specimens were therefore cultivated on blood-agar plates by the method of Schottmiiller. In no case was characteristic h ~ molysis eVIdent. The white scour specimens and the ordmary specimens of colon bacilli ar:peared precisely similar. F eeding white mice with white scour bacillI and colon bacilli from various dom t;sticated animals, including the ox, horse, and sheep, produced no positive results. Of the twenty· eight paracolon bacilli twenty-three could not be differentiated from Gartner's bacillus enteritidis, either by cultivation or by the agglutination test, and one specimen could not be differentiated from the swine-fever bacillus. Furthermore, four specimens were found which, biologically and culturally, behaved exactly like the swine-fever bacillus, the paratyphoid B. bacillus, and Ga rtner's bacillus, and yet were not agglutinated by swine-fever serum, paratyphoid B. serum, or Gartner's serum. (All the sera were of high agglutinative strength.) The occurrence of Gartner's bacillus in the bodies of calves dead from white scour is by no means rare and deserves attention. In order to obtain some information regarding the occurrence of Gartner's bacillus enteritidis, bacillus paratyphosus B., and the paracolon bacillus, which were agglutinated neither by Gartner's serum nor by paratyphoid B. serum, the authors examined the dung from forty-four adult cattle standing in different places, and of sixty four- to six-weeks-old calves in the Berlin slaughter-houses. They failed to find bacilli of these varieties in any case, but usually found colon bacilli, hay bacilli, and occasionally bacillus f;ecalis alcaligenes. The same results in this connection followed the examination of dung from fifteen sheep, three goats, sixteen dogs, twenty-four rabbits, fifty guinea-pigs, thirteen hens, fourteen pigeons, six geese, and fourteen sparrows. III new and old filtered bouillon cultures of ordinary bacillus coli and white scour bacilli they were unable to discover toxins. On the other hand, they found toxins, although not invariably, in bouillon cultures of the paratyphoid bacilli and in Gartner's cultures, provided they were at least ten days old. After thirty minutes' heating of the toxic filtrate to 60° C. the toxic effect was somewhat weakened but n0t destroyed, but after thirty minutes' heating to 80°

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273

C. the toxin lost its virulence. When given by the mouth the active toxin produced diarrhcea in experimental animals. The authors observe that should it appear during the course of the experiments that the etiological views hitherto held in regard to enzootically occurring white scour are correct-a question which, at the present time, they do not feel qualified to settle-they would attach the highest importance, in treating white scour, to the therapeutic employment of a very active polyvalent anti-toxic serum. Experiments for the production of such sera are already in hand. In the case of white scour the method of treatment would probably resemble that in diphtheria, because it is of the highest importance to protect the young calves during the first eight days after birth. The authors consider it possIble that the cause of white scour and of pneumonia of calves is of the nature of an ultravisible virus, and they are conducting experiments with the view of clearing up this question. Furthermore, they have directed their attention to discovering whether the organism of human dysentery can be found in white scour. Up to the present all their examinations of calves dead from white scour have ended negatively, for amongst the 200 varieties of bacteria from cases of white scour which they have examined they have never once found the bacillus dysenterire of Kruse-Shiga or the bacillus dysenterire of FJexner. The experiments which they have now in hand may be regarded as a contribution to the question raised by Loffier at the Fourteenth International Congress for Hygiene and Desrnography as to the differentiation of the typhoid bacilli, and up to the present they have been able to distinguish the following varieties:(I) Bacillus coli commune. (2) Pseudo-coli bacilli. These behave similarly t~ the bacterium coli commune in cultivations and etiologically, but do not coagulate milk. (3) Paracoli bacilli. These culturally and etiologically resemble Giirtner's bacillus and paratyphoid B. bacilJus, but are not agglutinated either by Gartner's serum or by paratyphoid B. seIUm. (4) The bacillus enteritidis Giirtner. (5) Bacillus paratyphosus B. (6) Bacillus paratyphosus A. (7) Bacillus typhi. (Titze and Weichel, Ber!. Tieriirztl. TVoc!lCns., 28th June 1908, pp. 457-458.)

ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE, LONDON. INAUGURATION

OF

THE WINTER SESSION, 1908-09.

THE winter session at the Royal Veterinary College was inaugurated on Thursday, 1st October, when Mr WILLIAM HUNTING, F.R.C.V.S., one of the Governors of the College, presided, and the Introductory Lecture was delivered by Professor WOOLDRIDGE. There was a large attendance of students, members of the profession, and others. The Chairman, who received a hearty welcome on rising to open the meeting, said: "Gentlemen,-My first duty is a rather sad one; it is to draw your attention to a loss sustained by the Governors quite recently, and to express our sympathy with them in that loss. I refer to the death of Sir Nigel Kingscbte, who was a Governor of this College for thirty-five years, and who for the last twenty years acted as Chairman. Sir Nigel in the world was known as a courtier, a soldier, an agriculturist, and a horseman, but he was better known here, not as a dilettante individual whose name was on the Board of Governors as an ornament, but as a worker and a shrewd !.lusiness