VACCINE TREATMENT OF MAMMITIS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2912, 21 July 1925, Page 3

VACCINE TREATMENT OF MAMMITIS.

A DISAPPOINTMENT. The Director-General of Agriculture states that since the advent of preventive treatment for contagious mammitis by means of vaccine the Department has been carrying out special experiments in order to determine the extent to which the vaccine treatment affords protection agains the disease. A good deal of the work has been done at the Wallaeeville laboratory, and while it is not yet finally completed, it will be of interest to state the results so far arrived at. These maybe summed up as follow: — Iff the first experiment three cows were used, two of them being vaccinated with the mammitis vaccine and one not vaccinated and used as a control. Of the two vaccinated cows, one was afterwards directly inoculated with a small quantity of a pure culture of the organism of contagious mammitis, the other with a small quantity of milk taken from a cow suffering from the disease, the non-vaccinated control cow being also infected with the same dope and the same form of infective material into different quarters of the udder. The result was that all three contracted contagious mammitis. Later one vaccinated cow and the non-vaccinated control cow have completely recovered, while the other vaccinated cow still shows the organisms of contagious mammitis in her milk.

A second experiment was conducted on five cows. Four had been treated with dhe vaccine and one left unvaccinated as a control. All five were later innoeulated with a small quantity of milk containing mammitis. All of them contracted the disease as a result of this artificial innoculation, but since three of the four vaccinated cows and the unvaccinated cojitrol cow have recovered, while one of the vaccinated cows still shows symptoms of the disease. These are the results obtained so far at Wallaeeville, but further experimental work is being conducted.