CAUSE OF MILK FEVER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 21

CAUSE OF MILK FEVER.

RESULT OF RESEARCH

CURATIVE MEASURES EXPLAINED

It has long been known that the inflation of a cow's udder with air, if done in time, will stop an attack of milk fever (writes a contributor in the Country Gentleman). What causes milk fever was unknown until recently. The recent work of Dr. B. Sjollema, of the University of Holland, has shown that one cause of milk fever is insufficient quantity of calcium and other substances in the blood. Ho found that the slow intravenous injection of 300 to 450 cubic centimeters of a 10 per cent, solution of calcium chloride, plus 20 grams of glucose, not only cured every case of milk fever, but prevented milk fever in cows that had suffered from it on former occasions. He also found the liberal use of vitamin D, obtained throngh the feeding of cod liver oil, beneficial. Dr. Erick Windmark and Dr. Olaf Carlens, of Sweden, and Dr. M. I. Auger, of France, found that the lack of sufficient sugar in the blood would cause milk fever. These men found that a cow giving 621b. of milk a day must supply over 31b. of sugar daily, or that the sugar content of the blood would have to be renewed every fifteen minutes. That insufficient sugar in the blood causes milk fever seems to be substantiated not only by the fact that the blood of the jugular vein contains 18 per cent, less sugar than the blood from the udder, but- also by the fact that an injection of glucose quickly corrected a milk fever condition. The glucose is injected either into the veins or below the skin. Both a 10 per cent, and a 20 per cent, solution have been used successfully. There is no danger from excess injection of glucose, because the excess is eliminated in the urine.

Here we have two causes and a remedy in each case discovered by men working in widely different fields. Since either one or both causes may be operative at the same time, it would be well to use both treatments, especially since both are of a harmless nature.

It has also been suggested that a ration rich in sugars and calcium fed during the dry period would be a wise precaution. Stock molasses or corn sugar will supply the sugar, and steamed bone meal the calcium in an inexpensive way. After calving, the feeding of molasses or glucose every few hours is advisable, and the ration should be especially heavy in the steamed bone meal. If this is done, and arrangements are made for the injection of the above solutions at the first appearance of the symptoms of milk fever, the cow can be milked out completely with safety immediately after parturition. Furthermore., the serious setbacks from milk fever will bo averted.