Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/824

742 first and second inoculations. After the second inoculation 59 animals died (0·1 per cent). During the year following the inoculations 1,082 inoculated pigs died of Rothlauf. Before the inoculations the annual loss in the same localities is said to have been from ten to thirty per cent.

In a communication (1894) to the Central Society of Veterinary Medicine (of France), Arloing claims that he has demonstrated the ætiological relation of a bacillus first described by him in 1889 (Pneumobacillus liquefaciens bovis) to the infectious disease of cattle known as pleuro-pneumonia. The demonstration was not complete until recently, because of failure to reproduce the disease by inoculation with a pure culture of the bacillus.

Although this demonstration is of such recent date, protective inoculations against this disease have long been successfully practiced. For this purpose serum obtained from the lungs of an animal recently dead has been employed, this having been proved by experiment to be infectious material, although the exact nature of the infectious agent present in it was not determined.

In the Bulletin of the Central Society of Veterinary Medicine of May 24, 1894, M. Robcis reports the results of inoculations made with cultures of Arloing's Pneumobacillus liquefaciens bovis, and with injections of pulmonary serum. His statistics with reference to the last-mentioned "legal" inoculations he has obtained from official documents relating to the Department of the Seine.

The total number of infected localities in this department during the years 1885 to 1891 was 1,253; total number of contaminated animals, 18,356; total number inoculated, 18,359; total number of deaths prior to inoculation, 1,753; total number of deaths after inoculation, 2,741; total number of deaths due to the inoculation, 94; total percentage of mortality, 22·8 per cent. After discussing these and other statistics Robcis arrives at the conclusion that Arloing's method of preventive inoculations with cultures of the Pneumobacillus liquefaciens bovis gives better results than the legal method with serum from an infected animal, the total loss among animals exposed to contagion not being over twelve to fourteen per cent.

In the infectious disease of cattle known under the names of "black leg," "quarter evil," or symptomatic anthrax, protective inoculations have also been practiced with success. The disease prevails during the summer months in various parts of Europe, and to some extent in the United States. It is characterized by the appearance of irregular, emphysematous swellings of the subcutaneous tissues and muscles, especially over the quarters. The muscles in the affected areas have a dark color and contain a bloody serum in which the bacillus is found to which the disease