VACCINATION OF CATTLE AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1618, 4 March 1903, Page 62

VACCINATION OF CATTLE AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS

Results of work done with a view to the discovery of a method of protecting cattle against infection with tuberculosis are very encouraging. The Philadelphia “Medical Journal” for November 29th, 1902, contains a report of the researches upon this subject made by Drs. Leonard Pearson and S. H. Gilliland, of the State Live Stock Sanitary Board of Pennsylvania. These investigators have accomplished the most exhaustive researches that have yet been made and their report is worthy of the most careful study. Professor Behring, of Berlin, Germany, has been referred to as having discovered a method of vaccinating cattle against tuberculosis and his method has been put forth as a practical oue when, in tact, Behring's work was begun only in July, 1901, and his results are as yet very incomplete and unreliable. The work done by Pearson and Gilliland was inaugurated as early as September 29th, 1900, nearly a year before Behring begun his researches, and their results are muen more extensive and reliable. Of course, until Behring announced on December 12th, 1901, that his researches were in progress, these investigators in Germany and the United States were each ignorant of the others work. The discovery of what it appears may eventually prove to be an effective method of vaccinating cattle against tuberculosis may tnus lay

be considered the result of coincident labours of Pearson and Gilliland in the United States and Behring in Germany. The title of discoverer will finally rest upon the one of these mvestigatois who will first render his method applicable in a practical way to herds ,oi cattle. The plan consists in injecting into the healthy animal a series of gradually increasing doses of human sputum tubercle germs with the intent of rendering them immune to, or protected against, infection by virulent bovine tubercle germs. In the case of four young cattle which had been thus protected, cr vaccinated, by Pearson and Gilliland, these experimenters were not able later to produce tubeiculosis in any of them by injection of doses of virulent bovine tubercle germs in quantities much larger than were required to produce the most extensile tuberculosis in control cattle not protected by vaccination. It should be saia that all of the cattle were proven by the tuberculin test and physical examination free from tuberculosis before the experiment begun. . Pearson and Gilliland do not claim ti“tthey have a method of vaccination winch lias yet been evolved to a sufficient extent to be of practical use, but they announce that they have m progress researches which have for their object the rendering of the plan practicable as a hwienie measure. Cattle owners and all others should watch with interest the progress of this work.— John. .T. Repp, V.D.M., lowa Experiment Station.