ABSTRACTS                                        307

If the treatment is applied within the first three days of the disease, it usually
results in a cure, but in cases of massive infection of the circulating blood, the injec-
tion of large doses of Acaprine is liable to cause death as a result of liberation of toxic
products from the dead parasites. The drug is also contra-indicated when there are
symptoms of acute intestinal disturbance present, such as haemorrhagic enteritis.

The dosage recommended is 2 c.c. of a 5 per cent solution of the drug per 100
kg. (220 lbs.) bodyweight, administered by the intravenous, intramuscular
or subcutaneous route. [S. K. S.]

Sur l'avortement epizootique des bovides. Un traitment nouveau. [A new
treatment for epizootic abortion of cattle.] R. MOUSSU. (1935), Rec. Med.
Vet. CXI, 905—919.

The article deals with the elaboration of a new theory to explain the incidence of
epizootic abortion and related conditions. Various authors are quoted to support
the contention that in the great majority of cases the presence of Brucella abortus is
not sufficient to induce abortion, and that cows giving a positive agglutination titre
and yielding cultures from the milk and blood may yet continue to calve normally.

The theory is developed that Br. abortus is an organism which is not primarily
pathogenic, but that it is capable of assuming the role of an invader when conditions
favourable for its development are created. The fistulous withers of horses that are
associated with infection with Br. abortus is quoted as an instance. Here the disease
is not capable of being artificially reproduced by the injection of virulent cultures of
Br. abortus deep into the tissues at the point of the withers, but the subcutaneous
injection anywhere into an infected horse, of a killed culture of Br. abortus, results
in the formation of a suppurating local tumefaction, and the presence of living Br.
abortus in the pus can only be explained as due to migration of the bacilli from the
previously existing focus of infection to the site of diminished resistance. The author
considers that Br. abortus is ubiquitous in nature and that it easily gains an entrance
to the blood stream. Circulating with the blood it settles and develops if a site favour-
able for its development is met with. In the case of fistulous withers, a local injury
to the tissues is the predisposing factor. The hygromas of cattle is another instance of
the same type.

Epizootic abortion of cattle is considered to be another disease of the same order,
except that the primary cause is a different one, being a deficiency in vitamin-E. It
is a disease of the foetus and the intensity of the damage caused, is in direct proportion
to the degree of deficiency, and is evinced either as sterility, abortions or death of
the new-born and retention of the placenta according as the deficiency is nearly total,
moderate or only slight. A total deficiency would lead to early death and absorption
of the foetus with consequent sterility : and this sequence of events following total
deficiency in vitamin-E has already been experimentally proved, by Evans, to take
place in the rat.

A partial deficiency in vitamin-E cannot by itself bring about the death of the
foetus and it is here that the pathology of the Br. abortus infection comes into play.
The requirement in vitamin-E of the foetus increases with the increase in its own rate