CONTAGIOUS MAMMITIS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 16, 12 February 1909, Page 4

CONTAGIOUS MAMMITIS

AN INSIDIOUS DISEASE. The Press telegram from Palmerston North the other day concerning the spread of contagious mammitis in that district has told us nothing new, nor is its publication likely to have any remedial effect. Contagious mammitis is here, and it has been here for many years.

THE FIRST CASES were located in Otago about 1902, and in the Department's report in 1903, Mr J. A. Gilruth, chief veterinarian, wrote of the necessity for taking stringent preventive measures, pointing out that the progress of the disease set up a souring process in the milk, and brought direct loss to the farmer by injuring the udder. The report stated that the

SPREAD OF THE DISEASE was generally effected by the hands of the milkers, and by means of the returned separated milk from the factory. Mr. A. R, Young, reporting from Taranaki in the following year, gave his opinion that the saleyard was the most active agent. As a farmer when he wished to sell a wrong cow, generally took her to a saleyard some distance from his own neighbourhood, thus a disease which should have been limited to the district in which it originated was spread throughout the whole country. Of course, from cow to cow, and from quarter to quarter on the same farm, it was usually spread by the hands of the milker, by milking the discharge from diseased quarters on to the ground, by test-siphons, etc. Mr. Young naively remarked that the disease was "but seldom spread by means of the cloth used for washing the udders prior to milking, as such a thing was rarely used," and added that no doubt one potent cause of the spread from cow to flow was the DIRTY HABIT

of moistening the hand with the first small quantity extracted from the udder.

Mr. Gilruth wrote in the same report: "That energetic measures are urgently required to cope with the insidious but none the less important disease there can be no doubt. The question naturally arises: What are the necessary measures? I venture to submit the following recommendations: " First.—The compulsory notification of all diseases and abnormalities affecting the udder of any cow supplying milk for human consumption directly or indirectly. This I recommended strongly five years ago, and had it been then enforced an incalculable saving of the country in this disease alone would have accrued.

Second.—The registration of all dairy herds.

Third.—The periodic inspection of all dairy herds.

Fourth.—Sterilisation or pasteurisation of all milk at dairy factories, or at least sterilisation of all skim-milk before return to suppliers. Strenuously as I urge the foregoing recommendations, I must add that from my experience of the agriculturalist, and particularly the dairyman, my convictions are that nothing in that or any other way will be enforced until the day comes when there is a great outery. Then too late every nerve will be strained.

TARANAKI EXPERIENCES. The disease was first located in Taranaki during 1903, when Dr. Harrison, of Eltham, removed a tumour from the teat duct of a cow on an Eltham farm. The obstruction in the teat-duct consisted of a small lump at the top of the teat, and the inspector, in forwarding the specimen to the Veterinary Department, said that this obstruction to the flow of the milk was prevalent in all the bush country of Taranaki. Mr. A. R. Young was instructed to visit the farm, and he found several animals affected there. Later, he found the disease existed in several other herds in the district. In February, 1905, the district veterinarian received a letter from a well-known settler to the effect that he had had the disease on his farm since 1809. In 1906, Mr. Gilruth in his report stated: "The necessity for the complete and periodical examination of all cows, and the insistence on the notification of all udder disease, which I have so long and so fruitlessly advocated, is more than ever demonstrated." The 1907 report upon contagious mammitis includes the following: 'This troublesome disease still persists in the colony, and is responsible for rendering a large number of otherwise good cows partially or wholly useless for dairying purposes. . . . Several instances have occurred where farmers have suffered considerable financial loss as a result of infection spreading through their cows. In some cases, at any rate, the owners have largely themselves to blame for this, in that they do not keep a sufficiently close observation on the condition of their cows' udders and teats and the character of the milk secretion, thus allowing the disease to become well established and distributed before they realised the position. ... A thoroughly carried-out periodic inspection of all dairy herds (as recommended in the 1905 report) is badly required. For this to be really effective, however, it is obviously a primary necessity that the officers carrying out the work of inspection must possess a thorough knowledge of the clinical symptoms of disease, and, moreover, be qualified to advise owners as to the treatment of affected animals and the adoption of measures necessary to insure the prevention of the spread of inspection." THE LATEST BULLETIN. "It is unnecessary," says Mr. Gilruth in his 1908 report, "to look further than the hands of the milkers or the cups of the milking machine for the active agent in dissemination. While the hand of the milker is a common vehicle for the conveyance of the disease, the evidence accumulated from many sources places it entirely in the shade alongside the cup of the milking machine. And when this is stated it is with no desire to cast unwarranted reflection upon that useful adjunct to the dairymen. A priori, the milking machine should by its construction enable a farmer to produce cleaner milk than by any other method, but it must be kept scrupulously clean, and be sterilised after each milking. If not, the effects will be disastrous. Now, a milking machine will not, so far as our experience goes, produce disease, but it will certainly readily transmit a disease such as that under review from one udder to another if precautions be not taken That the disease is readily spread from udder to udder we have repeatedly proved experimentally. The microbe only requires to be transplanted on to the milk-moist point of a teat, when it will multiply with great rapidity, and soon push its way into the teat-duct itself through the orifice, and become firmly located on the mucous membrane. It is also dangerous to milk the contaminated udders on to the floor of the milking shed, for there the germs will remain for a considerable period a menace to the health of other cows. The dirty practice of moistening the hand with the first few drops of milk is equally to be condemned. From farm to farm the disease may be spread by skim-milk derived from a infected herd through the factory or creamery. ... In ninety-nine percent. of cases it is through a new cow bought in a saleyard, without examination or any precautions whatever. Too often the saleyard suggests itself as an easy, effectual, and profitable means of disposal of a cow suffering from this disease. ... I do not blame the seller —there is no law to prevent him so disposing of a cow with contagions mammitis—but I do blame the purchaser who light-heartedly buys such a "pig in a poke" when there is no necessity to do so, and it is accordingly difficult to feel deep sympathy for him in misfortune. Prevention can only be effected through a knowledge of the disease and its gravity. Those who have had no experience are apt, on seeing a case in a neighbor's yard, to pooh-pooh the

matter. But if they will only bear in mind that instances have come under our observation where from 40 to 80 percent. of the cows in certain herds have been rendered to all intents useless; that cows have died as a result of the disease; and that cases of human disease, particularly sore throats in children, have been traced to cows suffering from mammitis. The serious nature of the complaint may be brought home to them. Cows bought-in, either privately or publicly, should on no account be placed with the healthy herd till they are proved free from this and other diseases. Such a precaution is simple, and may save endless trouble. .... For the practical dairy farmer I do not recommend the trouble of attempting treatment of an infected cow. The important matter is to prevent its spread to others."

OPINIONS DIFFER. Thus it is seen that for any years past the Veterinary Division of the Department of Agriculture, headed by Mr. Gilruth, has been endeavoring to bring home to the people at large and to the Governmental authorities in particular, the need for repressive measures. All over the colony, and in Taranaki more than elsewhere, progressive farmers have a very wholesome regard for Mr. Gilruth as an expert in stock. His recommendations have usually been pretty sound, and many of our people who have taken up the dairying industry for all that is in it, have gained greatly by closely following his idea in matters pertaining to the tare of stock. In the foregoing it has been urged by him, and urged repeatedly, that the inspection of stock by skilled inspector is of paramount importance to prevent the dissemination of this disease, which is known to be prevalent all over Taranaki, as well as in North Otago, Wairarapa, Wairoa (Hawke's Bay), and even at the Ruakura State Experimental Farm in the Waikato. Oddly enough, the Chief Inspector of Stock holds a totally different opinion. In his 1908 report, he says: "In such (dairying) districts there is a certain proportion of tubercular cattle and swine. This, then, is practically the only serious ailment of live stock of New Zealand. On this account, of the multifarious duties of the Stock Inspector, the examination of animals for disease is not one of the greatest importance. Of the minor diseases, blackleg has been effectively controlled; contagious abortion receives the early attention of the dairy farmer, and is successfully combatted. Contagious mammitis is a more difficult problem; It is, however, fortunately, almost confined to limited areas."

Either the disease is serious, or it is not. The Chief Veterinarian says it is. The chief of the Stock Department says it is only a ''minor" disease. The Chief Veterinarian says that stock inspection is imperative. The Chief Stock Inspector says the examination of stock is not of the greatest importance. Chatting with a leading dairy farmer the other day a "Daily News' reporter gathered the impression that the farmers would welcome the placing of the whole system of stock inspection under the control of the Chief Veterinarian, who has the expert knowledge to impart to the inspectors under him. Under such a system the inspectors would be directly responsible, either to the Chief Veterinarian or the district veterinarian. He pointed out that at present the system is very cumbersome. In the event of a farmer wishing the services of a veterinarian now, he must communicate with the stock inspector. The "case'' proving beyond his skill or knowledge, he communicates with the Inspector-in-Charge at Wanganui. He in turn must pass on the matter to the Chief Inspector of Stock at Wellington, thence to the Secretary for Agriculture, who refers the matter to the Chief Veterinarian, who instructs the district veterinarian, who thus after a week's delay receives a notification of a disease from the stock inspector whose office is on the other side of a partition. This causes unnecessary loss of time, and very often the loss of the beast which the surgeon is intended to treat.