ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS,

process by injecting smaller quantities intravenously, but he abstained from this method because he had had no personal experience of it and was loth to employ it for the first time in such critical cases. (Berliner Tierar:;;tl. WOclletlSchr., No. 34, 18th August 1904, p. 577.)

PROTECTIVE INOCULATION AGAINST SWINE ERYSIPELAS IN WURTEMBERG IN 1903.

DURING 19°3, 39,578 swine were protected by the Lorenz'methodofinoculation. In previous years the numbers were as follows: 1902, 27,8II; 1901, 20,801 ; 1900, 15,217; 1899, 12,501; 1898, 9°93; 1897, 7178, 1896, 1487; 1895, ·63; 1894, 136; 1893, 9. Of these, 37,275 animals, distributed in 60 dIstricts and 585 sub-distncts, were inoculated by government officials, whilst 2303 were inoculated by private practitioners.

Forty-four of these animals were further subjected to curative inoculation. Thirty-one recovered, five died, and two, whose recovery was doubtful, were slaughtered. The remaining six were slaughtered without any pressing reason. In those which died the disease was already far advanced when curative inoculation was practised.

Of the 39,534 protected swine 1781 had been inoculated with serum during the previous year, and only received culture injections during the official year now under review. In 373 cases culture No. I alone was given, and in 1408 cases culture No.2 also. Of the other 37,753, which were simultaneously inoculated with serum and culture No. I, 21,401 also received the second cultural injection. Although a number of swine (of which particulars are gIven) died during the course of the inoculation, no losses directly traceable to inoculation occurred. No case of conveyance of swine erYSIpelas from inoculated to uninoculated swim! was recorded during the official year. The inoculations as a whole must therefote be regarded as exceedingly satisfactory.

The degree of protection left nothing to be desired, for up to the close of the official year no case of SWIne erysipelas in an inoculated pig had been proved. Three swine, which died after the lapse of the time necessary for jnoculation reaction, were believed by the owner to have suffered from swine erysipelas; in one case this view was negatived by a bacteriological examina­tion of the spleen. Another pig had suffered from an intercurrent disease but had recovered.

The serum and the necessary cultures were prepared in the Hygienic Laboratory of the Royal Wiirtemberg Medical College, which also undertook the sterilisation of the required syringes.

The inoculatIOns carried out by state officers consumed 2 10,464 litres of serum, an average quantity for each pig of 5'9 cc. The quantities previously used were as follows: 1902, 5'7; 1901, 5'9; 1900, 6'1; 1899, 6; 1898, 5'9 ; 1897, 5'8; 15.701 litres of serum were supplied to pnvate veterinary surgeons.

The entire outlay for the inoculations performed by officials, including the fees of the sixty-eight veterinary surgeons (each of whom received a living and travelling allowance, as well as 15 pf. per animal inoculated), amounted to 20,214 marks 54 pf. After deducting fees paid by the owner, amounting to 17,318 marks 5 pf., the cost to the state was 2896 marks 49 pf.

On an average therefore each inoculation cost 54'2 pf., of which the state paid 7'8 pf.

During the official year a system of insurance was instituted against losses due to inoculation. Compensation was made entirely contingent on the

ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

owner delivering the necessary internal organs at latest three days after the animal's death for the purpose of bacteriological examination. Only twenty· four demands for compensation were made. Careful bacteriological exammation of the organs forwarded, comprising microscopical examination, inoculation of mice and pigeons, and cultivation on artificial media, showed, however, that in twenty-three of the cases death had not resulted from inoculation.

In the twenty-fourth case no satisfactory distinction between swine erysipelas and mouse septic~mia bacilli could be made on account of the advanced state of decomposition of the organs sent. As the animal from which these organs had been obtained had died at least four days previously this demand was also dismissed. (Beisswanger, Berliner Thieriir::tl. Wocltenscllrift, No. 33, lIth August 190 4, p. 565.)

THE TREATMENT OF TORSION OF THE GRAVID UTERUS IN COWS.

IN the Berliner Archi,l for 1902 Lempen gave a summary of the extensive literature dealing with this disease and of the varying views held regarding its origin and treatment, particularly as to the direction in which the al1lmal should be rolled in order to reduce the torsion.

In common with the majority of authors, Lempen rightly concluded that the rolling should be in the same direction as the torsion. He also proposed to describe the torsion as being to right or left according to the direction of the spiral folds to be found on the upper wall of the dilated cervix uteri when the examiner stands behind the animal. This mode of describing the changes seems least likely to cause misunderstanding. .

Haase divides his cases into three groups according to the method of tre:tt­ment employed. The first comprises cases where delivery was effected without rolling or hobbling the animal, which was either standing or lying down.

The second, cases in which delivery was only possible after rolling, and The third, two cases which Haase himself did not treat but only examined. In describing the degree of torsion he takes as his index the upper wall of

the uterus. Where this has moved through an angle of 90 degrees he speaks of quarter torsion; when through an angle of 180 degrees (in which case the upper wall will have become the lower) of half or semi-complete torsion; when through an angle of 270 degrees as three-quarter, and when through 360 degrees (the upper wall having then described an entire circle and returned to Its former position) as complete torsion.

In forming a diagnosis, the extent to which the maternal passages seem fixed in position, the amount of resistance they offer to the hand, and the degree of tension in the spiral folds, to some extent indicate how far torsion :has pro­ceeded. Where the spiral folds are very tense and the passages completely immovable, so that the operator cannot reach the fcetus, torsion is usually complete; in cases of less complete torsion (one·quarter to three-quarters) the cervIx uteri is closed and displaced to a proportionate extent, and the resist­ance to the passage of the hand is in keeping.

Case No. I.-Primipara. A three-year-old Simmenthaler cow had shown pains for some hours without labour being completed. On manual examina­tion moderately tense folds running towards the right could be felt on the upper wall of the dilated cervix uteri, so that it was necessary to bend the arm at the wrist and avoid the folds in order to pass the hand into the uterus. The calf still lay in the unbroken membranes, with the head and fore limbs directly behind the obstruction. There was therefore moderate torsion between one