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Some of these products, such as tuberculin and malein, enable the owner to rid his herds of tubercular cows and glandered horses before these diseases have become far enough advanced to be recognized by the visible symptoms alone. Black leg, anthrax and hog-cholera vaccines are valuable agents in the control of disease. In the treatment of fistula and infectious abortion, bacterins may be used.
Within about a decade of the close of the century, Robert Koch, whose discoveries and ingenious studies in bacteriology had brought him world-wide renown, announced that he had produced a derivative of the tubercle bacillus, which he termed tuberculin, that he thought might prove curative of tuberculous disease. It was to be injected beneath the skin.
Those which appeared to be immune were kept in a thoroughly healthy, sanitary quarantine station for six months or a year, and again tested by tuberculin before being introduced into the cages. The original stock of monkeys was treated in the same manner or else destroyed completely, and the houses and cages thoroughly cleaned and sterilized or new ones constructed.
In the syphilitic lesion, skiagrams usually show a more abundant formation of new bone, but in many cases the doubt is only cleared up by observing the results of the tuberculin test or the effects of anti-syphilitic treatment. Sarcoma of a phalanx or metacarpal bone may closely resemble a dactylitis both clinically and in skiagrams, but it is rare. Treatment.
THE TUBERCULIN TEST. The only certain method of recognizing tuberculosis is by this test. There is no other method of recognizing this disease that is more accurate than the above test. The substance used in testing animals for tuberculosis is a laboratory product. The culture medium is then heated to a boiling temperature in order to destroy the germs.
If there are several open cases of tuberculosis in a herd of cattle, the application of the tuberculin test, removal of the reacting animals and disinfection of the premises are not sufficient to eradicate the disease. It is necessary to repeat the tuberculin test within six months, and later at twelve-months intervals, until none of the animals that remain in the herd react.
This unfortunately still remains the case with the large mass of dairy cattle. But certain of the more intelligent breeders owning valuable cattle proceeded to take steps to protect them. The first step was to test their cows with tuberculin, promptly weeding out and isolating all those that reacted to the disease. It was at first thought necessary to slaughter all these at once.
It is then passed through a porcelain filter that removes the dead germs. The remaining fluid is tuberculin. There are two methods of applying the tuberculin test. The subcutaneous test consists in injecting a certain quantity of tuberculin beneath the skin, and keeping a record of the body temperature of the animal between the eighth and eighteenth hours following the injection.
There is considerable difference of opinion regarding the treatment of glandular tuberculosis. Some authorities, impressed with the undoubted possibility of natural cure, are satisfied with promoting this by measures directed towards improving the general health, by the prolonged administration of tuberculin, and by repeated exposures to the X-rays and to sunlight.
In countries where dairying is an important industry, tuberculosis is a common disease of cattle and hogs. The abattoir reports of Europe and the United States show that tuberculosis is on the increase among domestic animals. The Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture reports that out of 400,008 cattle tested with tuberculin 9.25 per cent reacted.
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