5. All in the quarantined stable and even those left in the general stable, should have the external generative organs, the hips, and the whole length of the tail washed once or twice a day with an antiseptic solution. Carbolic acid or creolin (2 or 3:100) makes a very safe and convenient agent, but copper sulphate (6:100) or mercuric chloride (2:1000) may be substituted. The colorless mercuric solution though effective and inodorous, has an element of danger in it, when left in barns in large quantities.
6. Cows or mares that have just aborted, should have the uterus irrigated daily for a week with a disinfectant solution. Carbolic acid (1:100 with 1 sodium carbonate) or creolin (1 to 2:100) or mercuric chloride (1:1000 with 1 hydrochloric acid) are good examples. Use a long rubber tube and funnel. They should not be bred until all discharge has ceased.
7. It is a good practice to keep a separate sire for the aborting and quarantined suspected animals, but the bull for each herd should, after each service, have his sheath injected with the disinfectant liquid, the orifice being held and the liquid pressed into all parts and finally, the skin around the sheath must be well washed with the same.
8. All cows or mares in an aborting herd, or one from which aborting animals have been removed within a year, should, after delivery, be injected with a disinfectant for one week exactly as if they had just aborted. This will guard against the danger from animals that carry the germ, but have become so tolerant of it that they no longer themselves abort.
9. New born animals brought in from other herds should be sponged all over with one of the above-named disinfectant solutions before being added to the herd.
10. In case the breeding animals go to pasture, separate fields should be furnished for the aborting and suspected ones and those supposed to be sound.
11. Breeding ewes, goats and sows should be excluded from all pastures occupied by suspected herds or those under treatment. The fields should further be cleared of rabbits as being susceptible to the infection and capable of keeping it up and transmitting it.
12. It is important to reserve the herd sires for the exclusive use of the home herds. Where this cannot be done, disinfection of the sheath and penis should be practised immediately after each service.
Attempts have been made at different times to destroy the bacillus by subcutaneous or intermuscular disinfectant injections. Bäuer used in the cow a 2 per cent. solution of carbolic acid, of which he injected two Pravaz syringefuls under the skin of the flank every fortnight from the fifth to the seventh month. It was rather unreasonable to expect much from 10 minims of carbolic acid once a fortnight, even apart from the fact that this agent is converted into the inert sulphophenic acid in the body.
Lignieres followed in the same line by injecting into the bodies of the cervical or other muscles 10cc. (2½ drams) of a mixture of terpinol one part, olive oil nine parts. This was injected during pregnancy every second day for the first three months, every third day for the second three months, and every fourth day for two months. The claim for success is based on the alleged prevention of second and third abortions in the same animals, and this becomes rather shadowy when we consider that the rule with cows is that they do not abort a second or third time. We have met with veterinarians who claimed a splendid success with the single injection of the terpinol. Lignieres claims no such success with his long continued treatment, as he had a percentage of abortions in every herd treated, and from first to last almost every animal in each herd aborted once, or was sold nymphomaniac. It is to be feared that the apparent immunity depended mainly on that tolerance which comes early in nearly every case to the aborting cow.