A study of some factors influencing fertility and sterility in the bullGilman, Herbert Lester
Science
A study of some factors influencing fertility and sterility in the bull
Gilman, Herbert Lester
Cattle; Infertility in animals; Livestock; Thesis (Ph. D.)
by positive reactions to the complement fixation and agglutination
tests. His results indicate, he believes, “that the bull is not so
important a factor in transmitting abortion as many believe.” The
conclusions are: “Bulls may become infected with abortion bacilli. Bulls
that reacted to the blood tests were incapable of disseminating the
abortion disease to the abortion-free heifers with which they were
mated. Bulls appear to possess a sexual or individual immunity to
abortion infection that renders them less susceptible than cows and
induces a milder form of the disease. The resistance appears to be due
to certain anatomic and physiologic differences in their sexual organs
which make them less favorable places for the growth of the abortion
germs than those of the opposite sex.”
Buck, Creech, and Ladson (6) applied the agglutination test to 325
mature bulls, of which 288 were negative and 37 positive. _Bacillus
abortus_ was isolated from five animals, of which three showed marked
lesions, two in the seminal vesicles, and one in the left testicle. They
conclude: “_B. abortus_ may involve organs of the generative apparatus
of bulls, producing chronic inflammatory changes. Of the generative
organs, the seminal vesicles appear to furnish the most favorable site
for the lodgement and propagation of abortion infection.”
Schroeder and Cotton (7) cite the case of a bull which reacted to the
abortion test and, on post mortem, _Bact. abortum_ was isolated from an
abscess of one epididymis. They state: “Our attempts to produce a
similar case of infection artificially failed, and, in agreement with
the difficulties many investigators have had to obtain incriminating
evidence against bulls, we have thus far failed to infect bulls in any
way that justifies the assumption that they are important factors in the
dissemination of abortion disease.” Further, they conclude: “Regarding
the dissemination of abortion disease by bulls, we may say, however,
that it would be foolhardy in the dim light of our present knowledge to
take liberties with reacting bulls, or bulls from infected herds, or
promiscuously used bulls.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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