CONTAGIOUS MAMMITIS.

Shannon News, 5 June 1925, Page 3

CONTAGIOUS MAMMITIS.

PREVENTION BY INOCULATION. DETAILS OF NEW PRINCIPLE. The campaign against contagious munntis undertaken by Messrs Wil*ai“s ai * d Ranstead, representatives bf the Hamilton Vaccine Company Ltd. is meeting with a good deal of interest amongst farmers. Ranstea(l in opening an uduiess, gave details of the discovery of the vaccine used by his company, dle Prevention of mammitis, stating that in 192.1 Mr J. G. Smith bacteriologist at the Waikato Hospital, commenced investigations into tlie prevention of mammitis—which is nowhere m New Zealand more prevalent sennn U Waikat means Of a g “Y e stances of the rav•mn™ the in the Waikato and Ihames districts, where as a rehm kL 0116 il , lstaUce a herd J had been reduced from nearly 100 lm LheA The vaccine treaLent ? ad & lven ln this case, with the tliat ihere had been no recuri ice ot the trouble, and no fresh outfweak in cattle reared on the place. The principle of the vaccine treatment was, it was stated, that the germ ojntugKias mammitis, known as streptococcus mastiditis, is taken from me affected quarter, cultivated in millions m the laboratory, killed, and J . n lGcted into the blood stream of the animal. The action of the biood is to devour these killed germs giving off anti-bodies, and thereby setting up an immunity against the uisease. in other words, an artificial immunity was set up, this being based on the recognised and soundest prinof acquired immunity. “We do not know,” continued the speaker, “lor how long a period we ,h lve ,- i l lullund ' V ’- Tile greatest length of tune over which the treatment lias been tried is three years, hut even if we can give cows an immunity lor any length of time at all, the treatment is worthy of a trial.” Laboratory tesis, continued the speaker, taken by the Agricultural Depth tment, show that 43 per cent, of the udder infections among cows \ure caused by contagious •mammitis, whilst 57 per cent, are du© to all sorts of other udder troubles. It was not claimed that the vaccine would treat every udder disease from which a cow might he suffering, hut, it was claimed that it would cure contagious inamitis. To assist, farmers should keep their cows in good condition.

The lecturer st:essed the point that whilst—as in the case of human beings who may contract typhoid after having been inoculated against its effects, a cow might develop the symptoms of contagious mammitis subsequent to receiving the vaccine treatment—no definite proof had ever been obtained of a cow, definitely free from tlie disease at the time of inoculation, developing it afterwards. Even where cows had shown the symptoms before inoculation, ihe course of the disease had never been so severe, and the cows had become apparently sound again afte;' a few weeks. , Mr Ranstead went oin to explain (lie success which had attended inoculation in the North, and stated that to date 40,009 cows had been inoculated, whilst bot kings had been arranged for 20,000 more. Inquiries had been received from Australia and the Argentine, and the Government were eo-operating with the company in experiments at Wallaceville and the Ruakura -Experimental Farm, at Hamilton. Data was being collected from the various herds inoculated throughout the country, and when 200,000 cows had been" treated, it was confidently expected that sufficient would be available to allow of the Government making a definite pronouncement as to the efficacy or otherwise of the treatment. Personally the speaker had no Ooubt whatever as to what that verdict would he.